All characters from the Dune Universe are property of the Frank Herbert Estate. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.
It's easier to be terrified by an enemy you admire.
Thufir Hawat to Feyd-Rautha
The women fought like tigers.
Drusilla blocked a throat punch from Reverend Mother Paloma with her arm then pushed the woman backwards. Drusilla's black robes flapped as she brought her arms down in the crouching tiger position. Paloma recognized the fighting style. She suddenly knew the names of the women that had trained Drusilla. They were the missing reverend mothers from the Gammu chapter house, the same women that had gone missing months before.
Paloma knew then, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this was the monster that had killed them. This enraged her. She used her rage to focus her mind on the killing the monster before her. Drusilla's face shifted. Her brow became ridged. Her eyes became a fiendish yellow. Her mouth spouted fangs.
"She's like the man that attacked me!" Paloma thought. "Is this what they call a vampire?" Paloma suppressed her nagging uncertainty. She was in the midst of a life and death struggle and had no time let her mind wander.
Near the sietch mouth Surayya turned to the fight between Paloma and Drusilla. Her eyes caught sight of Motorria. Her lips were moving and not just in the way needed to maintain the shield. It almost looked as if Motorria was talking to someone.
Motorria basked in a fountain of power. The energies needed to maintain the shield around the sietch were tremendous. Motorria was channeling enough energy to fuel the entire slayer fleet for years on end. That mystical energy would not be contained. It leaked into the other parts of her. Motorria had given birth only hours before. The pre-life memories held by the child were still contained within her. Under the influence of the magics she channeled, those memories rose like a black wave washing over and covering her. The illumination of her mind no longer lit the world around her but instead was caught and channeled into a no-space which was the darkness of years. Images, which were flecks and pieces of the child's pre-life memories, seemed to zoom past her.
The first suicide bomber slammed into the sietch. The shields faltered for a moment then strengthened. A handsome man in his mid thirties suddenly appeared before her.
"Hello, Liam." Motorria said.
The handsome man before her smiled. Motorria could see why Buffy had fallen in love with him.
"You are a construct." Motorria said to him. "Genetic memories have organized themselves in such a way that I can see the empty spaces between the experiences of memories. Over the thousands of years, your grandfather's genes have become a part of the Atreides bloodline. You are implied by the interactions of millions of other memories. You are the footprint in the snow."
Motorria could hear the sounds of struggle behind her. Surayya had joined the fray between Drusilla and Reverend Mother Paloma. Motorria continued to balance the energies that fueled the shield around the sietch while she kept those energies from drowning her in the echoes of the past.
The handsome man stepped forward.
"My name is Angel. He said. I know what you have to do."
Motorria looked at him puzzled.
"Vampires are soulless killing machines; however, they are influenced by the flesh they wear. Hence, they have personality. The soul of a vampire can be restored."
That revelation awakened other memories. What Angel was suggesting became abundantly clear. The spell was a simple matter for her. She didn't even need the orb of Thessela. She could summon a soul and hold it in her bare hands. She was that powerful.
"You want me to give Dracula his soul back? Motorria said impressed at the scale and simplicity of the plan.
The second suicide bomber slammed into the sietch scattering shrapnel for hundreds of meters. The shield held steady. Motorria remembered the spell by Willow Rosenberg. She began to repeat it. Mystical energies that paled in comparison to what she was currently channeling flowed through her.
"I'm going to field test the spell." She said to the memory of Angel. "I'm going to see if I can first give Drusilla back her soul. Motorria completed the spell. Something pale and white condensed from the universe beyond. It hesitated in the air for a moment then shot directly for Drusilla.
The Vampire screamed as something pale and hot pierced her. Drusilla held her head as she fell to the ground. The memories of all her sins came back to her. Guilt slammed down on her like the weight of an entire planet. Her howls became a soft sobbing moan. Small tears escaped her.
Buffy looked over at Surayya puzzled. She had joined the fight along with Reverend Mother Paloma and Surayya. The gashes on Buffy's face were healing quickly. Her white armor absorbed the blood spilled on it.
"What the..? Do vampires in the future routinely go crazy or what?" Buffy asked.
"You don't see it?" Surayya asked. "She has her soul back." Surayya looked over at Motorria who seemed to be holding a conversation with someone invisible.
"Moto restored Drusilla's soul." Surayya was in awe.
Buffy hesitated only a moment. She reached down and pulled the Gem of Amara off of Drusilla's finger. She then grabbed her scythe and with one smooth motion decapitated Drusilla as she lay on the ground. The vampire's body exploded in a cloud of dust.
Surayya looked up at Buffy shocked and angry.
"She had a soul!" Surayya screamed at Buffy. "She had her soul back!"
Buffy looked at Surayya firmly with a strange expression on her face. She seemed smug and distant. This was not at all the girl she remembered.
"I am a permanent apocalypse for demon kind." Buffy said. "She had her soul back but she was still a vampire, she was still a monster. The Destroyer charged me with one commission. I have been charged to destroy all monsters. I am the law!"
And with that, Buffy turned and walked away.
