Liptarnom chuckled, as Buffy Summers returned.
He knew she would.
He'd smelled fear on her, when she spoke about the 'Daleks'.
"I'll help you," said Buffy, "but no amulet. I do this out of my own free will."
Liptarnom gave a brutish laugh. "I've been through too many layers of Hell to fall for that."
"You don't have to trust me to know I'm telling the truth," Buffy argued. She plunged her sword into the ground, to make a point. "It's in both our best interests to work together. If I overthrow you guys, I just create disorder and chaos before the Daleks arrive. Then there's no hope for anyone."
"Which means that to protect yourself and all the others," Liptarnom concluded, gesturing at the demons nearby, "you won't fight back when we place you under the amulet's thrall. You'll fight much better without a soul."
Buffy raised up her hands. "And you'll never get to the Gate."
Liptarnom's smile dropped. As he barked out an order to stop his demon minions, in their tracks. He eyed this puny little ensouled creature up and down. Taking her in.
"Explain," Liptarnom demanded.
Buffy took a folded paper out of her jacket pocket. Threw it at Liptarnom, who caught it. Unfolded it, his eyes on its content.
"I've been writing these things the whole time," said Buffy. "My daughter knows where I am. And she happens to be a very powerful multi-dimensional Key — able to unlock any dimensional doorway in existence."
The words on the page seemed to imply the same thing.
As if this same child had already managed to rip open a gateway to somewhere else, to rescue Buffy Summers, but had been tricked into condemning her mother to Hell, instead.
"If Seo shows up here," Buffy argued, "and you've already drained my soul…"
"Then I lose my bargaining chip," Liptarnom realized. He crinkled the letter in his hand. The love and compassion floating through the words spoke of weakness — but the woman who stood before him was not weak. He knew, from her combat skills thus far and her arguments for her own soul, that she was wise and powerful.
It wouldn't do to underestimate her.
Nor would it do to lose such a valuable potential asset to his army.
"You know that if you turn against me," Liptarnom warned, "I will destroy you in seconds."
Buffy shrugged.
Liptarnom got up from his elaborate throne. His long foot-claws clacking against the stone floor, with every step.
Examining this 'Buffy Summers'. And realizing… whatever or whoever she was… she was something different. Not just something he could use to get to the Gate — but something he wanted for himself, afterwards.
One with the potential to be his greatest warrior.
"Then we must prepare for battle," Liptanorm told Buffy. "Warrior creature."
One of the first things Buffy did was get rid of the torture pits and hell stuff.
"We're training an army, here," Buffy argued. "They need to spend the time preparing and learning to fight. Not getting flayed over pits of fire or whatever."
"I will use my amulet," Liptarnom said. "Turn them all to my purpose."
Buffy put her hands on her hips. "Yeah? And just what's the success rate on your amulet, Mr. Invade-The-Universe Warlord?"
Liptarnom didn't answer.
"I've done the whole leading-armies thing before," said Buffy. "And if you're heading out to invade the universe, you're going to do it with a lot more demons that you've got working for you, now. So either you've lost basically everyone along the way — which makes me wonder how the hell you managed to take this place over from your predecessor — or you came here with tons of hell demons, and only found the amulet later."
Liptarnom's lips formed a thin line.
But he still didn't speak.
"And anyways, I know how sketchy the whole draining-souls thing can be," said Buffy. "I'm a Vampire Slayer. I've seen way more than my fair share of sirings. Taking away someone's soul is a gamble — you never know who you'll end up with at the end. Could be a warrior. Could be a psychopath."
"A warrior kills your enemy, but a psychopath kills you," Liptarnom muttered. "I am familiar with this."
Buffy Summers gave him a smug grin.
Knowing she'd won.
"If the freed slaves rise in revolt against me," Liptarnom warned, "you will die in excruciating agony, Buffy Summers. Remember that."
She'd figured he'd say something like that.
She also figured he'd have other safeguards in place, to make sure the population didn't rise up against him after the Dalek attack was over. He was arrogant and warlike, completely devoid of mercy, but he wasn't stupid.
No one who came this far was stupid.
Buffy observed that, when she went through the slave quarters, meeting the people who were about to become her army. Everyone here was a traveler — someone who'd been smart enough or strong enough to escape from Hell and find a way to travel across dimensions.
They were kept weak on purpose, because Liptarnom knew they were a threat.
And — Buffy suspected — they were kept alive on purpose, too. Because if Liptarnom could ever perfect the amulet so it worked perfectly to instill loyalty into those it controlled, the people here would make a truly formidable fighting force.
Buffy didn't need brain control to manipulate people, though.
She just told them the truth.
"I've seen Hell Dimensions that thought they were prepared," said Buffy. "They thought nothing could defeat them. The demons who ran them were full of secret super-powers, immortal and invincible. And I watched every single one of those dimensions fall to the Daleks."
They questioned. They prodded. They tried to find a way that they'd be different, against the Daleks. But the more Buffy told them about her adventures in Hell, the more they realized she was right.
They had to stick together.
Or every single one of them would die.
"Usually, I get people to retreat to somewhere else, while the Daleks are busy exterminating the demons," Buffy told them. "Or get the Daleks to leave before they've killed everyone. That's the only way I've found, so far, to save people." She took a long, deep breath. "But it's not going to work, this time. There's nowhere left to run, so we've got to stand and fight."
"You said shooting a projectile at the eyestalk would kill them!" someone yelled.
"Yeah, it did," Buffy agreed. "Until they picked up the Shield of Gritumor, in this one Hell Dimension that smelled like burning rubber. Eyestalk's out of the question, now."
"Can they kill each other?" another asked.
"They can, and if you can trick them into hitting another one, that usually works," Buffy acknowledged. "But if you think you can kill one, steal its gun, and use it to blast apart all the others… well, that only worked once. Then the Daleks wised up to it, and found a way to make their guns stop working in enemy hands."
"Is there a way for us to use that against them?" asked someone else in the crowd. "Some instruction in the guns that we can trigger, making all their guns shut down at once — even in the Daleks' hands?"
Buffy considered.
Then gave a small smile.
"If anyone could work out how," she said, "that could work."
"Mervengyl claims to have escaped from a Dalek prison, once before," someone else offered. "She says it's by escaping their prison that she wound up in Hell in the first place."
That wound up being useful.
As Buffy followed up the lead, and found Mervengyl — a blue skinned octopus-looking woman, with silvery patterns along her skin. Mervengyl had been scarred by her encounter with the Daleks. And the escape into Hell had left her missing tentacles — sheered off in a dimensional fracture, she said.
"It's said… no one ever escapes the Daleks," Mervengyl said. Her voice still shook with the memory. "The Daleks had been using my people for experimentation. I thought I'd die. But I wanted to take them down with me. I found a way to trigger a dimensional catastrophe that swallowed their ship — and found myself in Hell."
Buffy outlined the plan to Mervengyl:
First, they find some way to convince the Dalek armor that its gun was in enemy hands. Use that to shut down all the Dalek guns at once. Then go in and overpower them using Liptarnom's arsenal of weaponry, before they had a chance to work out how to override the problem.
Mervengyl thought it through.
"Can you do it?" Buffy asked.
"I… think so," Mervengyl said. She cringed. "But you'll have to capture one for me, first. So I can tinker with it."
Buffy figured this was the best she was going to get.
Which meant it was now up to her to organize a trap to capture a live Dalek, then come up with some delay tactic while Mervengyl worked on it. And find a way to work this all to her advantage, at the end, so that after the Daleks were defeated, her mob of the ensouled could overpower Liptarnom and be free forever.
She was still thinking through how to do this all, when the man she'd rescued earlier — the one with the single large eye and legs and hands sprouting from his face-body — came to rest beside her.
"I have a question," he said.
Buffy looked over. Grinned. "Hey, Spiderman! Good to see you."
The man seemed confused. "My name is Yiprit."
"Yeah, I meant…" Buffy sighed, then waved it away. "Forget it. What's up?"
"You say the Daleks feel nothing but hate and anger," said Yiprit. "You've seen them destroy demons you thought were impossible to defeat. You've watched them wipe out entire dimensions without leaving a single soul alive."
Buffy stared into the distance.
Remembering.
She felt dead inside, just thinking about it.
"How did you survive?" Yiprit asked.
"I ran," said Buffy.
"Others must have run, too," Yiprit replied. "But you're the only one who's made it here."
Buffy didn't answer.
She'd tried to save people. Of course she had.
But she couldn't save everyone. And sometimes… she couldn't save anyone.
"Mervengyl says no one escapes from the Daleks," said Yiprit. "She did, once. And wound up in Hell. But you've escaped them so many times, you've lost count."
"I'm not proud of running," said Buffy. She hung her head. "I just didn't know what else to do."
Yiprit didn't answer.
"Look, I try to save people," Buffy said. "But sometimes, there's nothing I can do. And I know that if I don't get out of there, pretty fast, I'll be dead like everyone else." She buried her face in her hands. "I guess, I'm just a coward. That's why I'm still alive."
Yiprit didn't look like he believed that. Not for a moment.
"And maybe I got a bit lucky, too," Buffy added.
"No one's as lucky as you've been, Buffy Summers," said Yiprit.
Buffy frowned.
Snapped her head up, to stare at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You say the Daleks have gone through Hell, bent on destroying everything and everyone in their wake," said Yiprit, getting up and stretching his legs. "But that's not what happened."
Buffy glared at him. "You think?"
"The Daleks went through Hell," Yiprit told her, "bent on destroying everything and everyone in their wake. Except for you." He turned away from her. "Think about that."