Disclaimer: No, Buffy and Kain are not mine yet. So I am not making any money out of this fanfic.
IV- The Breaking Point.
"Not a chance in hell. I don't know if you have ever been told, Bones, but your don't look like the kind of boy a girl can trust like that in the first date," replied the Slayer, raising the sword slightly. "Do you want to talk? Great. Let's talk. But I'm not 'dropping the blade'."
She wasn't getting any closer, either, at least for now. She didn't want to attack if she didn't have to, because answers were urgently needed and this guy probably could share a few. But so far this day she had had bad luck and worse luck. And this Mortanius looked like the kind of guy that back in Sunnydale usually came with ritual murder and other end-of-the-world kind of stuff. Yes, for the moment she was going to put his file in the "probably dangerous" folder and...
"I fear that you haven't understood me. I wasn't asking you," replied the man, pointing the index of his right arm at her.
There was no incantation and no feeling of gathering power, so the spell caught her completely unaware. Terrible pain paralyzed her right arm and when something invisible seized her weapon, the Slayer found herself simply unable to resist. The same invisible force moved the sword through the air, until Mortanius' hand closed around the hilt. The pain disappeared at the same time, but Buffy's right arm was numb, like those times she had been hit with Initiative zappers.
"This is a powerful, legendary weapon. It was created for other hands. Not mine and certainly not yours. You should not have it," explained Skeletor-guy after observing the sword for a brief moment. "You should not have been able to claim the Soul Reaver from Kain."
In other situations, Buffy would have made some kind of pun. But after fighting against Glory and the strongest vamp she had ever met, the exhaustion was helping the most primal components of the Slayer to come to the fore. With his actions, Mortanius had openly declared himself yet another enemy and it considered that this was a do or die scenario, so Buffy Summers launched herself towards the wizards without thinking it twice.
The same invisible hands that had taken her weapon stopped her in mid-air and a cocoon of solidified air formed around her body, keeping her perfectly still a few centimeters above ground level. Mortanius approached his victim, until his emaciated face almost touched the Slayer's. Buffy tried to move her head enough to head-butt the sorcerer, but the magic binding her proved to be too powerful.
"Poor little girl. You are alone, far from home and now a pawn in a game between forces far beyond your imagination. I pity you, girl. Sincerely. Killing you would be an act of...
Mortanius fell silent then. If his gaze had been intense before, now it became laser-like in intensity. His body language went from calm to tense in a heartbeat. When he spoke again, Buffy detected in the voice signs of emotions that hadn't been there before.
"Tell me, girl. How it is that you have died, yet you still live?"
Pressure around Buffy's throat relaxed, although it didn't disappear completely. Nonetheless, breathing was easier, even if the rest of her body below the neck was still like a statue, trapped inside a prison of pure magic.
"Fuck you," was her reply. Personally, Buffy would have paid good money to spit in Mortanius' general direction, but her mouth was suddenly dry like the desert.
As the Slayer she had been close to defeat many times. She had been defeated a few times. She had faced enemies far more powerful than she was, Chosen One or not. But never in her five years of defending the Hellmouth had defeat so complete. No enemy had managed to subdue her so utterly and with such ease before, Glory included. And she had never experienced the kind of fear she faced now, fear of dying here, alone and far from home.
"I can make you wish for oblivion. I have the power to make you feel pain beyond your imagination. I can torture you within an inch of death and keep you there, trapped in eternal agony. I can do all this and much more. I will if I must. For your own good, girl, you will tell me what I want to know or I will use pain to find out. Tell me how it is that you have died and have returned to life. You are not one of the undead, but your soul has been briefly in the afterlife. Is that what makes you a Vampire Slayer?"
"How do you...?"
"I felt your arrival and saw your fight against Kain. Kain is destined to either save or doom this world and I cannot allow something like you to stand in his way. I brought you here, to my sanctum, to consider what to do with you. You are an unknown, a force that is not mentioned in any of the prophecies... which should be impossible. Whether you know it or not, your arrival here cannot be the work of blind chance and that is a very ill omen. Some force lurks beyond the horizon and I must decide what to do with you."
"What right do you have to decide about my life?"
"I am a member of the Circle of Light and that gives me the right to do anything I consider necessary to ensure the safety of this land," answered Mortanius. "And, of course, might makes right, or so it is said here. At any rate, this is your last chance. Do you want to do things the easy way or the not so easy way? I promise you that regardless of what path you choose, I will take all I may need from you."
"Try your worst then. I can take it."
"So be it."
And before the echoes of these words disappeared, a slim hand closed around Buffy's throat. And there was pain.
The Slayer was more than used to physical pain and a whole year of loss had taught her to cope with emotional pain. What Mortanius had summoned to break her will was something different. Pain of the spirit. It was worse than any other torture that the wizard could have used. It was the concentrated, refined, enhanced form of the worst pain in the world, transformed into a burning needle that was tearing her very heart apart.
The contact lasted less than a second. The memory would haunt Buffy Sumnmers for the rest of her days. The sheer intensity of it was enough to break the proverbial camel's back. She had been pushed beyond her limits, something broke inside her soul and tears rolled down her face, while the faces of those she had been forced to leave behind filled her mind.
The spell that Mortanius had been using to hold her was broken and Buffy collapsed, overwhelmed by her own emotions and lacking enough force to continue standing. All of a sudden, she felt that the full weight of the universe rested upon her shoulders. She was like that Greek giant guy, Atlas.
"You will tell me what I need to know."
Buffy grudgingly looked up. Mortanius was standing next to her. Tall, dark and cold like death itself. She didn't even feel the insidious forces at work within her mind as they crushed the last islands of resistance in the darkest corners of her soul. Alone, defeated and scared as never before, Buffy Summers nodded. Now she couldn't even imagine the possibility of trying to resist.
A very slight smile appeared in Mortanius' face. Not a pleasant smile.
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Notes: Much darker than I originally intended to write this, actually, but I realized that I had overlooked some fairly important details in my plot outline and afterwards this chapter refused to be written any other way.