Theories on Metaphysical Communion.
By James Carmody.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Gospel passages in reference to the Lord's Prayer; those were "willed" to the Catholic Church, and have passed into the Public Domain long ago in many centuries past. I also do not own "Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel the Series", nor any associated tales.
This takes place roughly just at the end of the novel by Mrs. K. White by the name of "Slayer", and is thus also a bit of a crossover with the movie from about 1992 titled "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".
Rating: Approximately slight "R", as in about very high age teens, the reason is the severity of the material- as it deals with the past of a teen girl having been forced at bullying point to give herself and her body to an adult woman pervert who she thought she could trust- that's darkness, so be warned, severe material that is all-too-common, sadly… much moreso in the secular world than the religious world, actually, but shouldn't ever happen, ever!
It'll be vague, as in "behind closed doors", but it'll be there, and downright traumatic to the aforementioned girl to recall.
Summary: In the novel "Slayer", there exists a hinted-at telepathic network, not unlike a "spiritual chatroom" that developed; and here it does aim at these characters to grasp moral-ethical reality and how these things work. This story deals with metaphysical adoption as a major theme.
Characters: Besides some of those in the novel "Slayer", there's also a Fellow from the 1st Century AD Who lived in Judea, and Who's supposed to be the very Head of the "Powers that Be". His involvement will be in guiding these characters, His stepsisters, as He wished, based on "The Lord's Prayer", and its inner ideas, so He is in it too, but vaguely in how the Trinity would function… I haven't ever grasped His interaction- and no, I cannot explain His nature- I shall not try to do that, as any effort I could make will fail, sadly and pathetically. He is to be thought of as "the Author of existence" as He came up with the rules of the universe for functioning.
His ideas will come to play in describing how He interacted with nature in how it was constructed and how sin breaks the essential structure of the universe, in some small way and that really only applies inside the person himself.
Chapter 1.): "Counseling our victim stepsister."
Chapter Summary: Basically, Athena (Nina) Jameson-Smythe is the "baby slayer" and the little sister of Buffy's coworkers in the same agency, as well as the daughter of Merrick Jameson-Smythe, Buffy's "Watcher", a mentor, in the movie, killed by Lothos to save her by his death.
Athena has had to make a sacrifice that nobody, especially a young child, which she is, should never ever have to make to begin with, and, as the story progresses, will be revealed as being deeply traumatized by the sacrifice she has had to make.
Almost all of this takes place in the "spiritual chatroom" that Athena's identical twin sister and protectress, Artemis, theorized had developed.
Athena had finally managed to forgive Buffy for the departure of her own daddy from her life, something about their relationship had managed to be revealed, and there was also a note in this dimension that had caused her to realize a very sisterly bond with the blonde warrior-woman who had given her this gift that for so long she'd been so profoundly ungrateful. It was a note from her own daddy left for her into this particular "chatroom" as her twin had theorized had developed that gave her the idea overall. In a nutshell, he'd informed her that, especially in the "Classical Era ideas", Buffy was her adopted sister, or so Merrick saw her as; and that was why he was teaching her these things. His love of her was a major element in the bonding between these two females.
Nina, as she preferred to be called, had been a very bitter teen, but some "messages" in her thoughts, as if the souls of her predecessors were messaging her in a lot of these things, had convinced her of the beauties of her gifts; she was angry, she was berserk for a darn long while towards Miss Elizabeth (Buffy) Summers for all the events into her family that the woman had caused, and had set Nina furious at her, and, in fact, downright hateful.
"Enter the dragon" Nina mused, in a mumbling vocal level in a little "family-like gathering" of these individuals, and some of what she remembered from television at her friends' places in Dublin during some teen rebellion times while she had watched some episodes of "Star Trek The Next Generation", this also resembled the Borg Collective, and an awful lot of what she was encountering caused her to be thinking over some of what she'd picked up from both Faith Lehane and Kennedy about Catholic social teaching and moral-ethical teachings of what the so-called "Communion of Saints" really was/is; and she rethought her ideas. "It is right and good" Nina thought to herself "to rethink matters of the soul and religion." her "Watcher training" had informed her to be mindful of the religious themes in a lot of ways- and the vital nature of metaphysics. She loved her "Watcher studies" and the idea of being thought of as a "Watcher", she had such a bitter dislike of "Slayers" in terms of their roles for so long in her life; now she wondered if she was being really profoundly unjust- and thus vulnerable. Though a pagan herself in terms of original beliefs, she was open to Christian teachings, if nothing else out of pure curiosity and desperate desire to learn more and more about reality, especially theology.
Right now she was far from invoking any Greek/Roman mythological entities, and had not the slightest intent to do so; she was happy hanging out with these people in this dimension she had come to think of as her stepsisters- the family theme genuinely made her happy, but inwardly she grieved over her badness and meanness towards Buffy- actually, she felt downright like the mean stepsister in the fairytale "Cinderella" in a lot of ways. And like her, she'd treated this other woman not unlike the family unpaid maid/slave, and now, giving voice to her regret about how she'd treated her, she turned to the blonde Summers woman with her long straight hair in a loose ponytail and who was in a sweater and informed her in no uncertain terms "Sorry for being a bit of a bitch to you, Buffy." as Athena Jameson-Smythe extended an attempt at an apology- she really did regret being so mean to her for about a whole year in fact, a year of deliberately backstabbing her and insulting her at every single chance she got. Nina cringed at the memory and realization that she really had been a bully "That's what hate does." Nina realized about her cruelty and what the motive really was. Oh, she'd not been one to engage in any "occult rituals", at all, ever, but she herself did often wonder about what the next world included- also, occasionally why those were considered forbidden by the "Watchers Council" regulations.
There'd been some degree of teen rebellion on her and her friends' parts, though, including some times of fooling around with such things, and she recollected some of those events herself, but they never appealed to her, at all.
However, as she recalled Leo Silvera, and how he himself had, as it turned out, a perverted and downright evil mom who'd blackmailed her into accepting her into her bed- by threatening her twin, Artemis, whom she knew she'd given up her virtue and her integrity to save the life of. Essentially, she filled with a far more brutal hate for that villainess who'd, by threatening her identical twin sister, managed to blackmail her into accepting being raped by another woman! Athena was livid at the mere memory of her vile rapist who'd forced her to consent, and she began to shake and cry silently at the mere thought of this monster whom she had thought she could trust as a friend and tutor, as well as the fact that she was in love with that woman's son- how could she even look at him now that his mom had done that- even if it was possible?! she couldn't let herself forgive that kind of mistreatment of a child! She was a victim of child rape by a trusted adult, and what was worse, this demoness had said she had "tasted" her while Athena had slept. She assumed that meant this woman had kissed/licked her face or neck, because another place on a girl's body being "tasted" was too gross to imagine. Half of her didn't want to know, the other half wondered if she should know, to be honest with her future husband, should she find Mr. Right. And at that memory she started weeping.
"Hey", it was one of the eldest of this "adopted stepfamily" she had found herself inducted into, and the 20-something year old woman was resting her hand on Athena's left knee, covered by her long leather pants. Athena was comforted by the fact that she found herself wearing her favorite hunting outfit: her cowboy boots, girls leather pants, sturdy blouse, and peacoat- her favorite had been found by someone, she knew not whom, but her "stepsisters" had taken her to the coatrack and shown her it, her marigold peacoat that she had loved so much, and had been lost rescuing Cosmina from that gang she'd been mixed up in "you okay?" the woman asked, concerned. She had red hair in a pixie-like hairdo, as they are called, was wearing blue jeans and a blue denim jacket or vest, as well as a blouse that looked "off-hot pink" if you please, or somewhere around that color, the young woman had a pleasant face, and pale skin tone, and had previously identified herself as "Vi".
"I'm okay; or I'll be okay." Athena replied with a sniffle at the horrible memory of what she'd been forced to endure, but something in her look told her friend that she was far from okay, and wouldn't be that way for a while- if ever, due to the damage to her psyche that what she'd been forced to endure would tend to engender. She was strong, she knew it, and had grown remarkably in her ability to continue her medical studies since being called into this "spiritual upgrade" as it were, but the traumatic memory really hurt her, big time, and Nina swallowed hard as she tried to cope with what she'd been forced to endure.
"You don't look like you'll be okay pretty soon; want to talk about it?" Vi asked, after suddenly redirecting her address to Nina into a question… and to her complete surprise, she found herself holding a crying Nina Jameson-Smythe as if she were her younger stepsister "Which, in more than one sense, she is." Vi inwardly mused to herself as she held a very distraught Athena, and as the younger girl explained to Vi, their bond had become very much "stepsisters", with Vi being the older sister, and she had a very tender view of Athena for a long time., and loved her deeply as a friend and colleague, as well as very simply put, neighbor. As Vi realized while Athena explained in the same time as Vi tenderly and sisterly stroked Athena's long, straight, brilliant red hair, as Buffy realized not unlike her comforting of a very upset Dawn after Dawn had had a fight with her friends. "They are as sisters, not biologically, but by adoption." was a sense of the consensus at witnessing these two bonding as Vi tried to rebuild poor Athena's personhood.
Buffy began to offer to discuss things with Athena, but Vi explained to her in a wordless glance, that it was she that Nina needed and had bonded with, and while that sort of hurt Buffy; as her newest stepsister turned away from her to another, but she knew that this would be worked out between Vi and Nina to cope with these problems.
Vi took Nina off to another room, as if her big sister taking her aside to help her to calm down, and Vi realized that Nina had indeed been bullied into consenting to being raped by Eve Silvera, the mom of her beloved and now deceased boyfriend.
Then it was that out of the blue that Nina looked at Vi and asked her to explain to her, in no uncertain terms, how they became stepsisters, as in the real world they'd never ever met.
To which Vi explained with a passage and statement, commonly called "the Lord's Prayer" as some idea proof of their bond and to explain how this worked out.
"Our Father, Who art in Heaven. Hallowed be Thy name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into Temptation, but deliver us from evil; Amen."
She related this profession of values and faith as some of an explanation, as she told her over time in their discussion, that the Designer of the universe, Whom also happened to be the Head of the Powers that Be, had, at the final moments of His earthly life, also in His "last will and testament", in legal speak, wished that all humans be inducted into His family.
Nina stated, calmly, that she rather didn't know nor trust Him, but that being because she didn't know Him, but liked the idea of being her neighbor's stepsister, and, at this moment, she explained, she was really seeking to grasp what her neighbors believed, and what reality really is vs. isn't… to be safe from delusion- her training at the castle had informed her that if one is not united to reality, one is vulnerable to monsters.
Faith, who was passing by informed in a sideways manner, as she headed to a chapel to seek some answers on why it was that she herself had kept her strength when she had not merely committed a similar offense, but done something far worse in a lot of ways, and Nina hadn't kept her gifts, but it'd taken Nina's boyfriend, Leo, to give them back to her at his entry into eternity through the portal of death- she was really puzzled by this turn of events, had replied to Nina that, essentially, the best way to envision demons is as "gangster spirits" and it seems Eve Silvera's boss, Asmodeus, as a "spirit pimp" as it were, due to that monster's "stock and trade" of impurity, in a side comment.
Initially, the sixteen year old superheroine Athena was really and totally grossed out by that element, but she calculated that that really made sense, all things considered- and what her friend Faith had let slip to her, while hinting at a horrible upbringing, had informed Nina that this was a really very good idea of how to picture that adversary of humanity.
The discussion shifted to the nature of events that Nina had read about in her "world mystical history" material, for lack of a better term, namely an event known as "the Temptation in the Wilderness" in religious world history, and as Vi explained to her; that was a showdown, a kind of diversionary tactic by the Leader of the Powers that Be to wrongfoot a seraph gone bad, who can also be found in the old Battlestar Galactica episode "War of the Gods" by the name of "Count Iblis", but who's also known as the devil- essentially, Vi explained to her "the Red Tsar of Perdition" is another way to think of that monster- here she picked up a book on Stalin's inner court/politburo/inner council and Nina saw that it was titled "Court of the Red Tsar", she'd well learned of that particular human monster in world history classes; but what had surprised her was that Stalin, though an atheist, had had a religious background of a former Seminary student prior to his joining that faction, and now had, before his death, explained that the devil's his ally, as he said "The devil's a good communist" in rough translation in explaining about his allies in this particular campaign he was involved in at the time at the Yalta conference.
As Faith knelt in the chapel to try to grasp why this turn of events had turned out, gazing in the darkened room at the Host in the Monstrance, she petitioned to have explained to her why it is exactly that while doing something really far worse than what Nina had done she'd kept her gifts while rebelling and Nina, giving them up to save the life of her own twin sister into this horror had lost her gifts… she was bothered by the seeming injustice of the whole, well, "affair" was entirely the wrong term, but "matter" seemed better. Then He seemed to extend from the image of the Host, and it occurred to her in her mind that Nina had forfeited her strengths under bullying duress, so no consent, whereas she herself had begun to despair of being allowed into the "White Hats party" ever again, and if He severed ties with her, that'd be it for her soul. Anyway, He, as the Intelligent Designer, was more than capable of preventing her from going all the way through with the harm, and He then finished it off with causing her to realize that the way you tame any individual who's having a tantrum is that you really restrain them from doing harm and you wear them out with minimal resistance; she was basically having a young adult tantrum, as it were, and it was He who'd stopped her from doing any serious harm to Alexander Harris, as well as causing him to heal rapidly as the result of that. That set of discoveries soothed her, for for a long time her conscience had bothered her about her horrible abuses of him at that moment- it had really bothered her what she'd done to him- and it should, He explained, as that proves her conscience and soul are still alive. "As for Nina's situation, while foolish, there was no right answer to her situation; so a degree of mercy is to be shown and is being shown… unlimited amount if she wants it- I'll forgive anything the sinner asks" He said with a smile "so long as the request is sincere to live right." He explained His terms for that miracle in this telepathic chatroom region.
Then Athena woke up, and deeply missing her twin sister, Artemis, she elected to try to send her a private message to try to convince her that she was welcome at the castle, if and when she elected to return home, but the teen knew, forgiving Wanda for her bullying and abuse would be another deal indeed, and would take quite a bit more strength to overturn that particular stronghold of hostility than merely forgiving Buffy, and the only reason she could do the latter of these that she was conscious of was that her daddy had left her a note in that room that he looked on the blonde as his stepdaughter due to becoming her teacher- and his traditional views on education. "Dad wouldn't react too well to one of his daughters being a practicing lesbian, though." Nina chuckled to herself as a flicker of rebelliousness flashed through her teenage mind- a flicker that she swiftly put down; then, as a realization hit her, neither of her dads, neither, if Vi was correct, her adoptive Stepdad, nor her now-deceased biological one, come to think of it… "But I can be an agent of her return, as well as her friend's return, and my best friends' return too, come to think of it." Nina said as she wrote the same things in her diary, planning on trying to rescue them from the grasp of their demonic masters prior to their deaths. And, finishing her journaling, she sat back on her bed, folding her hands behind her head, and crossed her legs at the knee, and grinned in her pajamas of boxer shorts and an oversized t-shirt, and reflected on her studies.
End Chapter 1.): Author's Notes: For now done, more to come in time, main themes are family and friendship, as you may have guessed.
Oh, and a handout of applause to Mrs. K. White for her novel "Slayer", written with the permission of Mr. Whedon, as the depiction of Athena Jameson-Smythe gave some of the inspiration for this story- I loved the idea of some of their gifts being a degree of telepathy, and I think that'd be a major bonus for them too!