To the Power Born: A Tale of the Slayers
Part 9: Declaration of War
Xander and Buffy had a really, really nice house in the Clinton Hill section of Brooklyn, and the core group went there straightaway— Giles, Kelly, Riley, Uncle Ballard and his whole family, and Willow, Lydia and Elise.
Some of the rest of us— my family, and others to join later— went to the guest house a block or so away, and all the rest went to the Millennium United Nations Plaza Hotel— expensive as hell to put up all the newbies but Mi Kyong and Autumn there, as well as Vincent, Vi and their kids, and— well, a lot of people. But Giles was feeling very security conscious, and paid it without a qualm after Vincent said it was the most secure hotel in New York. Add in that they assured Vincent that they would let him take charge of security for the floors that Team Slayer took up— three, total— and Giles paid the astonishing bill without any hesitation at all. (Of course, the Watchers' Council is offensively rich, but still… that bill, for a week, was over half a million dollars!)
We got to the guest house at ten-forty-five Eastern Time, and I let myself be taken to bed. Mom and Dad, they saw how badly this was messing with me— Alex was my friend, dammit, and his death was probably a thing aimed at Buffy, and probably because she was a Slayer, and I was a Slayer, too, making me a little to blame!— and they pretty much came as close as they had in years to ordering me to go to bed.
Colin — affected by this, but not so strongly as I was— took me to bed, cuddled me, and both pseudo dragons stayed close, Royal on my hip, the baby above my pillow.
I slept badly, but they helped— god, without them, I doubt that I'd have slept at all!
I woke about five in the morning to a still and silent house, and I wormed my way slowly and carefully out of bed without waking either my love or his pseudo dragon friend. Royal had felt my intent and flapped over to sit on the mantel of the fireplace while I did my bathroom routine and got dressed. I left a note for Colin on the nightstand— not leaving one under those circumstances would be past rude and inconsiderate and into the realm of criminal— and another on the door of the room for anyone who might come to check on me (Mom, Dad, Gwendolyn, Mi Kyong or my blood sibs) and went downstairs and out to the big (vast) front yard. Royal perched on a tree branch high enough to look down over the ten-foot-high brick wall that surrounded the mansion, and I found myself grateful for that little bit of paranoia.
I stretched, loosened up as well as I could make myself— some tension just doesn't go away in circumstances like those— and started doing katas and forms, martial arts practice exercises, starting with simple ones to loosen me up more, then moving on to more advanced and deadly exercises as I loosened up more.
After I'd run through all the forms and such that I usefully could (which took about an hour and fifteen minutes), I went on to shadowboxing, which is a lot more useful than most people would think. No longer the ritualized movements of martial arts practice exercises, I was fighting now, imagining opponents for myself, vampire, demon and even Slayer opponents, throwing myself into the things I thought would work in a real fight, trying new combinations, even new blows.
I'd been at it for maybe ten minutes when a low, hurt voice said, "You're telegraphing all of your kicks aimed above the waist, Jocelyn."
I jumped, spun, landed in a super-defensive, pulled-in sort of stance— and let out an explosive sigh as I saw Buffy standing under the tree where Royal sat, Pointy on her shoulder, her face pale and with big, dark circles under her eyes.
"I am?" I said, letting this go her way, for now. I didn't want to push her. "Can you show me?"
"Sure," Buffy said. "Pointy, sentry duty with Royal, please?"
Pointy head-bumped Buffy's cheek, then flapped up and perched next to Royal, facing the other direction.
"This is what your high kicks look like," Buffy said, and demonstrated. I winced— she was right, you could see them coming. She shifted position a little, then did a series of high kicks interspersed with other, lower ones and lots of punches. "That's what they should look like.
"You're letting your center move too much, Jocelyn— I've seen it before, it's from the Capoeira. You need that floating center, then— but you weren't doing any Capoeira, and you have to keep them separate enough to avoid the telegraphing. No more separate than that, no— all you've got in your arsenal, you need it, you should have it— but you can't let the habits of one art give you bad habits in another.
"Here, do what I do…."
In ten minutes, she'd fixed that bad habit for me. She was the oldest Slayer around, sure— but the power kept her healthy, her love of doing the job kept her active and constantly striving to be better… and she was better than me. She proved it by fixing a problem that might have given an enemy an edge over me, and fixing it in ten minutes or so.
"Good," Buffy said. "Watch yourself for a few days, then it should be ingrained— and that may keep you… keep you alive."
"Thanks," I said, trying not to start crying and failing miserably. "Buffy… I wish… I wish I could… I don't know what to say!"
"There's nothing to say," Buffy said, her voice breaking. "There's nothing… he killed my son! That monster killed my son!"
Just like that the sobbing started, and Buffy started to sink to the ground, her hands coming up to cover her face. I caught her, went down with her, and we knelt there, clinging to each other and sobbing. In just a couple of seconds, Royal and Pointy landed on our shoulders and wrapped their wings around us, and we all four knelt there and wept.
I don't know how long it lasted, but I do know that I stopped first, and just held Buffy and rocked her for a minute or so while she got a little more of her hurt out of her system.
"Thank you, Jocelyn," Buffy said when she stopped sobbing. She didn't let go of me, so I made no move to let go of her. "Tear-storm number ninety-three in a series of thousands, I guess. I just keep— I think, 'hey, I'm okay. Maybe just for a minute, but for this minute, I'm okay.'
"Then it hits me again, and I'm… not okay."
"I'd be scared to death if you were okay," I said softly. "Because that would mean you were totally insane, and probably dangerous, and you can kick my ass."
"There's that," Buffy said— and gave me a small, watery smile.
"Buffy… not to sound all mother-hen or anything," I said, blushing at the idea of treating her like she was my age, but having to ask, "but do Xander and Joyce know where you are? Or somebody at your house, at least?"
"Xander, Giles, Willow and Dawn all know I was coming here," Buffy said. "Thank you for thinking about it— proves to me that you're thinking the right way, makes me worry less."
"Okay," I said, and sighed. "I was just… I know how I'd feel if Mom or Dad left and didn't tell me right now. I left a note for Mom and Dad, another for Colin, and I'm not even leaving the property."
"Probably a really good idea," Buffy said. She hesitated, then said, "Nobody awake yet, huh?"
"Somebody's up," I said. "Saw the curtains by the front door move while you were correcting the back round kick. Did you need to talk to anyone in specific?"
"Your Dad and Colin," Buffy said. I must have looked surprised, because she said, "Your Dad's a brilliant detective, honey, and Colin… Giles and Xander both think he can help. Xander read Colin's comics in their original run, again while we were at your house, and Giles read them then too. They both think Colin can help. Xander says that he isn't like most super-powered comic characters, because he has complimentary skills."
"Huh?" I said. "I don't get it…."
"According to Xander— and ratified by Ballard and Rose, which covers the three biggest comic-geeks in the family— most of the detective types in comics are 'skilled normals,' not 'powered hero' types," Buffy said. "You know— guys who don't have powers, just training and maybe gadgets. Batman, Green Arrow, the Question, Captain America, Moon Knight, like that.
"But all three say that in his comics at least, Colin showed himself to be a pretty good scientific detective, and a really good psychological and deductive detective. So… I'm hoping he can help. I know he'll try, but I hope… I hope he can."
"Then let's go ask him," I said.
"I don't want to wake him," Buffy said.
"I don't want glared at," I countered. "Buffy… he didn't have a chance to learn to love Alex, but he liked him, and he loves me and knows I loved him. If I don't wake him, he'll be pissed."
Buffy looked at me with such naked gratitude that I almost wept again, and she did leak a few tears.
"God, I am so lucky to have the family I do," Buffy said, wiping at her cheeks. "I'd never make it through this without all of you."
I took her hand and we strolled up to the house, where the question became moot— Dad, Mom, Gwendolyn, Colin, Mi Kyong, my brother Stephen and a plethora of pseudo dragons were all awake and in the kitchen.
I led Buffy in— and Mom was right there, reaching for Buffy, pulling her into a super-hug, both of them crying already, and I went and hugged and clung to Colin and Mi Kyong while Daddy and Gwendolyn hugged Stephen, and pretty much everybody cried.
Once we'd all calmed down enough to talk, Buffy said, "Listen… right after breakfast, can I borrow Whitey and Colin for a bit? We're going to try and figure out… something about who… who did this, and Giles and Xander both want both of you guys there."
"Of course I'll come," Daddy said. "Colin?"
Colin looked a little surprised, but he nodded emphatically.
"Don't look surprised, Colin," Buffy sniffled. "Xander, Ballard and Rose all say you're a damned good detective, and Giles agrees. So… thank you."
Colin just nodded.
"However," Daddy said, "I think you all forgot someone."
"Giles called the hotel, and Vincent and Diane are both coming as soon as they can get there," Buffy said.
"That's good, but I wasn't thinking of either of them," Daddy said. "We should bring Jocelyn— if you think you can handle it, honey-girl?"
I blinked, stared, then stammered, "Well, yeah, but— but what could I bring— I mean, I'm no detective, and Giles and Ballard and Kelly, they're really good at following Colin's pantomimes."
"Allow me to demonstrate," Daddy said. "Jocelyn… in Buffy's second year in Sunnydale, what did she face right before she had to deal with Angelus for the final time?"
"Sea monsters," I said automatically. "The swim coach was using weirdo hyper-steroids on the swim team, and it was turning them into monsters one by one."
"What did she deal with the first time she had a significant threat after the Sunnydale Christmas Snowstorm of nineteen ninety-nine?" Daddy said, not slowing down at all.
"The fairy-tale demon," I said. "Pretended to be two little kids who were murdered, made everyone in Sunnydale freak out over the supernatural, try to kill everyone they thought had any connection to the supernatural."
"Any further significance?" Dad asked.
"That was when Amy Madison turned herself into a rat to escape being burned at the stake," I said. "She spent the next three years as a rat— probably didn't do her psychoses any good."
"First big threat Team Slayer faced after the Battle of Bloomington?" Dad asked.
"The vampire Diego Alhambra," I said. "Discovered a bunch of military cybernetic implants that had been abandoned as impractical because human bodies rejected them. Used them to jack himself and about three dozen other vamps up to super-vamp range, since vampire tissues don't reject implants (being dead), tried really hard to take over Mexico City."
"Who was Billy Blim?" Daddy asked.
"Part demon, his touch made men violently misogynistic," I replied. "Lilah Morgan of Wolfram and Hart shot him after Cordelia Chase… well, gave her hell for letting him make some guy beat her half to death."
"I think I see," Buffy said. "If this is something we've faced before… Jocelyn may spot it."
"Yes," Daddy said, giving me a proud smile. "She's asked more questions and remembered more stories than even Rose, I think— I know she knows more about the things we've all faced than I do."
"Jocelyn… will you?" Buffy asked.
"Of course!" I said. "I just… I hope you— I'm probably going to… to cry a lot."
"I know, honey," Dad said. He looked at Mom, and said, "Chantelle, if it weren't so urgent, I wouldn't ask her to do this."
"But it is that urgent," Mom said, looking a weird mix of sad and scared and proud. "An' I reckon if you didn't ask, I'd have to kick your ass for you, Whitelaw.
"Jocelyn… sweetie, you do your best, but don't you go tryin' to go on when it hurts too much. You take a break if you need it an' if you can do the job without… without havin' to look at any pictures they may have, I'd rather you did. 'Kay, sweetie?"
"Yes, ma'am," I said. I shivered. "I don't want to see pictures, not if… if I don't have to."
"There's nothing a person not trained as a detective could learn from pictures, honey-girl," Daddy said gently. "No pictures, okay? I want you to just listen, and watch Colin, and see if anything trips your brain into gear."
"Let me add," Buffy said, her voice shaky, but still sort of… well, firm, which shouldn't be possible, but it was, "that you don't discount anyone or anything because the story ends with 'and then he-she-we-they killed him-her-it-them,' Jocelyn. I've died twice, now, and I'm still here. No rule says the bad guys can't do the same."
"Okay," I said. "Okay, Buffy. I'll remember."
My sisters came down then, and they both hugged and held onto Buffy for a minute before she left to at least attempt to eat something herself, at home with her family.
After breakfast, Daddy, Colin and I walked down the street to Xander and Buffy's mansion, me between the two most important men in my life, holding each of them by the hand, and feeling a little odd.
On the one side, Colin Goddard, the man I loved, lusted after, and had taken as my first male lover, the man who made me feel like a woman, not a girl. On the other, Whitelaw Penobscot, my Daddy— not Dad, not right then, when I was hurt and scared over what had been done to Alex, but Daddy— who had made me his little girl by loving me totally without reserve, when a lot of men would have resented me because I was the biological child of someone else. Then add in Royal around my neck, accepting me and loving me without any questions about which me was the more accurate, and the oddness only increased.
Right side woman, left side little girl, middle just Jocelyn… it was a really odd feeling, but not at all unpleasant.
Phantom sat on Daddy's shoulder, her sharp eyes scanning around, even as Royal's did from his lifted head, and Nightfall, young and tiny, flew a slow circle several feet above our heads, watching for threats the older pseudo dragons might not see from their lower perches.
We got to Buffy and Xander's house with no trouble, and Xander met us at the door. I hugged him on sight, wept more, as did he, then we went in and went to their library to talk. Vincent and Diane had already arrived, were reading through copies of the police transcripts at the big conference table there, Vincent looking sad and sick, Diane frowning and looking worried. Uncle Ballard and my four aunts all sat there already, Aunt Rose looking murderously angry, Elaine and Sh'rin subdued and worried, Aunt Dawn shocked and hurt. Willow sat next to Lydia, and Buffy sat right down between her long-time best friend and her husband. Kelly sat next to Xander, took the hand Buffy wasn't holding when he sat down. Giles, on Kelly's other side, got up and came over to us.
Giles hugged me, exchanged unusually long two-handed shakes with Daddy and Colin, then sat down.
"All right," Giles said. "I appreciate everyone coming— and Buffy filled us in on why Jocelyn has come.
"Jocelyn… thank you. Thank you for subjecting yourself to what is very certain to be a frightening and painful meeting, young lady— and for stepping up to the responsibilities that the situation thrusts upon you so readily."
I nodded a little, but didn't speak— I was on the edge of crying already, and didn't want to start.
"All right," Giles said. "Given the cooperation that the Team Slayer has always offered to the City of New York, the way we have answered their calls for assistance consistently for the last dozen years, the mayor has ordered the police commissioner to cooperate with us fully, and the commissioner has been very good about complying with those orders. I have here a summary of events, taken from witness statements and police investigations. I… Diane, you have far more detachment than I do at the moment— than any of us, really— could you…?"
"Of course, Rupert," Diane said. she took the summary, read it to us, and I sat with my eyes closed, listening. Something tickled my brain, but I held off on saying anything until I'd heard everyone out— I knew there had to be more to come.
"All right," Giles said, his voice shaking. "Those are the facts as they have been ascertained from statements. I… Chief, he sent… as a last effort to help, he sent an image of the man who did this to Joyce's friend Leia. Willow has managed to capture the image holographically for us. I have it here."
Giles lifted a three-foot high, one-foot-wide-and-thick plastic box up onto the table, pressed his hand flat on the top of it— and I saw the man who'd killed Buffy and Xander's son, my friend Alex.
A little over six feet tall, muscular in a rangy sort of way— good tone, not great, no real bulk— auburn hair swept back from a high forehead, just wavy enough to deserve the word. Ice-blue eyes set around a straight, even nose, that above a mouth that showed a vicious sort of grin. All of this set in a handsome face, angular and almost pretty. The killer wore loose, comfortable pleated jeans, a T-shirt advertising the recently-popular rock group Whitefire and white sneakers. All and all, he looked like a movie star, a specific one, I mean.
"My god, he looks like a prettier Jared Leto," Aunt Dawn said, and I knew that she was right. "That's… wrong. The shithead should be ugly, hideous!"
For once, Kelly Giles said nothing about someone's foul language.
"Yes, it would be far more appropriate," Giles said. "Now… since arriving, Willow and I have been to the scene and examined it in our own ways. Unfortunately, we found nothing. Nothing at all. Willow was able to… to replay the event with a retrocognition spell, and we… we were able to—to watch it, but… we learned very little. She captured it, as she has this image, in a larger container, and if Vincent, Whitey and Colin can… make themselves look at it, perhaps they can learn more."
"We didn't learn much, like Giles said," Willow said, taking over mostly to give Giles a chance to pull himself together. "I did several spells, trying to learn something— but I learned just negatives, mostly.
"One thing— whoever it was isn't human. He moved faster than any human could have, as fast as most Slayers, I think.
"Past that… just negatives, like I said. I can tell you what he's not.
"It wasn't human, it wasn't a demon, it wasn't even alive. And it wasn't undead. It wasn't magical at all, either."
"That doesn't leave a lot of options, Wil," Xander said, speaking for the first time. He sounded… old. His voice was scratchy and creaky, like he had a sore throat, or had been shouting. "In fact, I don't see any past an alien."
"I'm not about to rule that out," Willow said. "Xander… Colin. Knowing that he exists opens up whole new doors. I'm working on it, I am! But I'm having to try to think of ways to detect things I know nothing about, so it's taking time, I'm sorry!"
"Hey, no, Wil," Xander said, reaching past Buffy to squeeze her hand. "Not mad at you, Willow just… mad at everything. Not your fault, I know, I know how far you'd have gone to stop it. So stop being sorry— you're helping, you aren't allowed to be sorry for that."
"Okay," Wil said, sounding tired and angry and resigned. "I just… I hate not being able to help!"
"Believe me, you're helping," Buffy said. "You being here for me and Xander to grab onto? Helping lots." She looked down the table at Vincent. "Vincent, have you got anything?"
"Nothing good," Vincent said, his face set in a scowl. "Buffy… the assassin knew where Alex would be, and when. Witnesses say he was only in the vicinity for a couple of minutes before the boys all came out.
"It occurs to me that you might want to have Brian Keller in, have him go over your computers and phones, make sure nothing is being tapped or hacked. The assassin had foreknowledge, that means these things must be checked… though I realize it could be done magically."
"I'll call Brian now," Giles said, standing and stepping back from the table. "Please, continue, I can listen while I call him."
"I have nothing else to add yet," Vincent said. "Except that this… it feels like revenge. Tactically, the risks were not high, but to do this in a public place insures some risk— enough that I feel revenge is the motive."
"Diane?" Buffy said, looking at the counselor. "I know forensic psychology isn't your thing, but… anything?"
"Vincent's right, this is revenge," Diane said. "Pure revenge, Buffy— I'm sorry to put it so… baldly, but this… this is someone taking revenge for a perceived wrong. The planning that went into it points that way— but what the killer said…." She flipped pages in the report she held, then read, " 'Hey, Alex. Alex Harris.' Alex replied— and the killer said, 'just making sure,' before he… did it."
"Yes," Daddy said. "You're right, Diane. This is… something old, come back to haunt us. I hate to think of it, but—"
The door to the library burst open, making everyone jump, and damned near everyone landed on their feet in martial arts stances— but it was only Mom and the older of my two sisters, Belinda. Mom looked freaked, and Belinda was crying and she grabbed Daddy and started wailing, the words she was trying to say lost in her sobs.
"Belinda, what's wrong?" Daddy asked as gently as he could. She tried to answer, couldn't, and he looked at Mom.
"I don't know, Whitey," Mom said. "We were making sure that the rooms for the others were aired out, and she stopped in the middle of opening a window in one of the guestrooms, and stared at her reflection for a second— then screamed, shouted 'no,' and ran out, headed this way."
Belinda's pseudo dragon friend, Midnight, a blue so dark it was almost black, came flapping in, and sent to all of us, *I think she saw something— something coming, that hasn't happened yet— but she's so scared that I can't see it.*
"Belinda," Daddy said, kneeling in front of my little sis and taking her hands. "Sweetie, did you see something that's going to happen?"
She nodded frantically, tried hard to stop crying, almost managed it. "Don't let Andrew get on that plane, Daddy! Not at all, not even! He can't, or him and all the girls with him will die!"
"Kelly, call him, move fast, he should be at the airport already," Giles said, being still on the phone with Brian Keller.
"Brian, too!" Belle said. "Giles, tell him— tell him that there will be a bomb on his plane, the man put a bomb on it!"
"Brian, change flights— no, don't, but tell the airport police to go over that plane from stem to stern looking for sabotage or a bomb." Giles sighed, shook his head. "Dammit— Brian, you be bloody careful!"
"Belinda," Daddy said softly. "Did you see anything else, honey? Is anyone else in danger?"
"Yes, daddy, Nancy!" Belle said, referring to Nancy O'Brien-Carter, who had been a dorm mother to the girls of the Giles academy for years, and had left on vacation with her husband right after school ended, the day this all started. "There's a bomb on her plane, too— but that's not the worst!
"Daddy, the man couldn't get to Angel and Faith's plane in time to bomb it, but there's a— a rocket thing, in the mountains, and it's set to go off and shoot their plane down and Daddy, THEIR PLANE IS ALMOST TO IT! THERE'S NO TIME!"
"Oh, shit!" Daddy said, and straightened. "Giles, who should we call to get them to divert—"
Then Colin was there, pointing at Belle, then at Willow. He made a "cast a spell" gesture, pointed two fingers at Belle's eyes, and then his own.
Willow got it. She said, "Belle, think about what you saw, the rocket and where it was— show me, honey, I'm coming in to look!"
Belle, sobbing wildly, closed her eyes, fought to slow her breathing— and Willow cast a spell, muttering words in a language I didn't recognize, her hands moving in graceful patterns while she spoke.
Suddenly, the space in front of Belle lit up with a scene of a rock shelf on a mountainside, a shelf maybe twelve feet wide and eight deep. On the shelf sat a tripod-mounted and fairly small rocket, a neat, matte-gray streamlined thing about four feet long and maybe seven inches thick at its widest point.
Colin pointed at the image, at Willow, and made a "back up" motion. Willow spoke again, and the image changed as the "camera eye" of the spell pulled back at a quick, steady pace. When it had gone back far enough to show the mountain skyline, Colin held up a hand, and Willow froze the view.
Colin's eyes moved over the image, fixing on several points of it, visibly trying to take mental photos of those points— then he nodded, kissed my forehead, moved to the window on the south wall, flung it open, ran up the screen— and flew out, glowing the white-gold color of his power.
Only a second later, we heard the sharp crack of a sonic boom from somewhere above, as Colin accelerated away to try and save two people that he'd never even met— just because they mattered to us.
Interlude:
When you can fly at hypersonic speeds (anything exceeding five times the speed of sound), you learn three things very quickly: You learn to recognize geographic features from the air, so that you can navigate, and when you slow or stop, you have some idea of where you are. You learn what the place you call home looks like from nearly any altitude. And you learn about air traffic patterns and flight corridors, so that you don't accidentally kill people in aircraft, especially when you're naturally radar invisible.
Colin Goddard had made it his business to learn the air traffic patterns and flight corridors of his "home" earth, and from what he'd seen, those of this earth were identical. He'd studied them as best he could while flying Jocelyn up to look down on the Earth, and later studied those around Seoul and Pyongyang while rescuing Mi Kyong— and if there were any differences, he couldn't see them.
That gave him a chance to save Angel and Faith, people whom his new family loved, good people, if Rose Killian had told the truth in Chosen to Stand. It gave him a good chance, even— and for that, his gratitude to the universe (multiverse?) swelled hugely.
But Belinda Penobscot had been terrified that there was no time to even call in a tip that there was a chance the plane might be attacked, get them to change course. That worried him— so he pulled out all the stops.
As he slipped past mach thirty-five, he started consciously curving his flight with the planet, so that he wouldn't go too high— a definite danger at the speeds he was moving. He found his geographic markers, got in the groove for a non-stop flight from LA to New York (his new friends were wealthy, and Angel and Faith would certainly be on a non-stop flight, giving him another edge towards success), and flew like hell chased him.
He crossed the Rocky Mountains, and cut his speed to mach twenty or so, giving him a better chance of locating the dot of an aircraft.
He spotted it at the same moment that he saw a gout of flame from a spot on a mountainside below him and to his left.
By his (admittedly rough) calculations, he had ten seconds to prevent a standard surface-to-air missile from reaching it's target— but he had to operate as though this wasn't a standard missile.
That turned out to be a wise choice. Even as Colin accelerated hard towards the aircraft, the missile fairly exploded away from the mountainside, accelerating faster than anything he'd ever seen, maybe faster than the damned missiles designed by Praetor's geek-goon, Technophile, and those had been fast as all hell (and designed to kill Colin, to boot).
Okay, so he'd have to be smooth and careful and fast. No problem— this was what he did.
Colin accelerated hard at the missile, slowed, curved around and came in over it as it crossed the halfway point between it and the aircraft. Not knowing how big a blast it might create, he did the only smart thing… though it probably wouldn't seem smart to someone outside the situation, or who hadn't done this sort of thing before.
Colin flew closer, got under the missile, rose up 'til his left shoulder pressed against the bottom of it, a few inches behind the nosecone, caught it with his hand, holding it to his shoulder— and flew up, hard and sharp.
The missile resisted the change in direction— gyro-stabilized, dammit— and he pushed harder, forced the nose up, up farther— then they were passing over the airplane, at least four hundred feet over it, and still rising.
He felt the damned thing bucking and trying to turn, and felt a grudging respect for its maker; it should have run out of fuel by now, and certainly shouldn't be able to turn and try to re-acquire its target— but that was just what it was doing.
In fact, it was fighting hard, tugging him back over as it struggled to home on the airplane— probably programmed to lock onto the plane's navigation transponder— and Colin had to fight to keep it going straight up.
He held it for another half a second, increasing the distance between it and the aircraft to some five hundred yards—
BOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The explosion of the rocket flung Colin down and towards the plane, shook him up, left him dizzy and in pain— but his force field held, and it didn't kill him, or even do him serious injury.
He corrected his flight, steadied himself some— and saw the plane recovering from being tossed around by the shockwave, which seemed much stronger than it should have been from a missile of that size.
He flew after the plane, knowing that while he was a lot stronger than any normal human being, he didn't have the strength needed to do anything for the plane itself, and willing the pilots to make the recovery, get the bird back on an even keel.
In a few seconds, the pilots wrestled the airplane back under control, and Colin cheered inwardly. He saw the craft bank, slowly and carefully, and watched as they settled into a new flight path. He followed for a moment, traced their new heading in his head— and decided that they were heading for Denver. They were already close, he knew— and the plane's angle of descent confirmed that.
To be sure that everything was all right, Colin followed the plane down, staying out of traffic patterns as best he could, staying as high as he could and still be sure that the plane he followed was the right one. Once the plane had landed— it spent zero time in a holding pattern, landed immediately— and slowed to a simple roll, Colin decided that the danger was past, and went to tell Jocelyn and her extended family that he'd done it.
Angel or Faith must have called them, he decided, because he no sooner landed in Buffy and Xander's back yard and pulled himself in through the library window than a whole bunch of yelling, babbling, happy-crying people swarmed him and all tried to hug him at once.
Finally, after Jocelyn had kissed him multiple times and everyone else had hugged him repeatedly, he was pulled to a chair, allowed to sit (with Jocelyn and Belinda on either side of him, as close as they could get and Nightfall settled proudly on his shoulder), and Giles thanked him formally.
"Colin… young man, you have just saved the lives of three of our own," Giles said, polishing his glasses and setting them back on his face. "As well as some two hundred other lives in the plane alone, and no telling how many might have died on the ground— the plane was over Colorado Springs, the wreckage… well, you stopped it.
"Young man— if you ever, ever so much as hint that you don't feel you are doing your part for us, earning your keep… I shall cheerfully allow my wife to lecture you, Whitey to berate you, Willow to curse you, Xander to look at you sadly— he's very good at that, it's quite distressing— and every Slayer within hearing to beat you insensate.
"You have put us substantially in your debt, Colin— and we thank you."
Colin stood, bowed formally, then sat down and took Jocelyn and Belinda's hands again.
"Now, I think it is time to return to business," Giles said, his voice hardening. "I don't know who is doing this, or why— but I know that they have committed an act of murder to hurt us, and tried several more.
"Whoever is behind this… they seem to want a war.
"Very well… then whoever they are, we will give them a war!"
Jocelyn stood up slowly, said, "You're right, Giles— it's time we declared war.
"And I think I know who to declare it on!"
For a long moment, everyone sat in stunned silence. Finally, Buffy spoke.
"Tell us, Jocelyn." She squeezed Xander and Willow's hands, took a slow, steadying breath, and said, "Tell us who killed Alex."
Jocelyn told them.
