"A Bossy Slayer" by Shadow Master aka Ryley Breen
(Metal Gear video game series/BtVS)
email: ryley[underscorebreen[athotmail[dotcom
Disclaimer: This is to state that I do not own any of the copyrighted material shown in this drabble/short. They are the rightful property of their creators and associated companies. I am making no money off of this whatsoever so lock the doors on the cells your lawyers are in because sending them after me would be a waste of time and money. I write this for the enjoyment of the readers and of myself.
Note: While it is true that the majority of the drabbles center around Xander as the main character I do on occasion get an idea for a plot that centers on another character. In this case the character is Buffy and the source of this idea was the MGS/BtVS crossover by SirWill entitled 'Metal Gear Sunnydale: Snake's Beginnings'. It intrigued me how SirWill introduced the Metal Gear qualities into BtVS and so I decided to take a stab at it myself. While I will take some aspects of SirWill's story and use it myself but I will do my best to make sure that the story is original enough so I won't be accused of being a copycat.
I will be taking some liberties with timeline issues and events but this is only in order to make the story run smoother. One example of this is that in the BtVS timeline this will take place early season 1 but in the Metal Gear universe it will take place in between Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. The conflict comes from the fact that Metal Gear came to North America in 1988 and the sequel was produced about two years later. As all Buffy fans know the television series didn't kick off until March of 1997 so for the purposes of the drabble/short I've decided to move the years for the two Metal Gear games roughly a decade ahead more or less. There will be other changes but I hope that you the readers will show some tolerance and compassion as you read this by focusing on the story being told rather than the facts being used.
Now on with the drabble/short…
A Bossy Slayer
United States of America, Maryland, A Top Secret Government Facility
September 30th, 1964
"So it has been confirmed then?" Asked voice number one, a male voice brimming with authority, from the head of the table.
"Yes. Operative Naked Snake, now to be called Big Boss, successfully managed to assassinate his mentor. The Joy is dead," Replied another male voice that sounded like it lived to rattle off facts and bits of information.
"Good. She was useful during the war but her usefulness is passed along with her team. If she was not good enough to defeat her own student, someone she trained personally, then that could only mean she was no longer the soldier she once was," said the authoritative voice with satisfaction. "Still, she may still have at least one use left."
"You are referring to the project to clone the perfect solider? Has her defeat at the hands of Big Boss not already proven that she is not the perfect soldier?" Asked a woman's voice that was colder than the last ice age by leaps and bounds, "Would not Big Boss be the more appropriate choice for the project?"
"Yes, he is the more appropriate choice for the cloning project, however if the information we received from the project head is accurate, then there are still some flaws in the Super Baby method that still need to be ironed out. This can only be done through empirical testing and through preliminary trial runs." Mr. Authority replied with his choice clearly stated in his voice, "If we use the eggs and other genetic material we extracted from the boss shortly after the liberation of France that are currently frozen, we can be sure that when it is time to clone Big Boss, there will be no flaws in the process."
"I see. Very well. We will use the genetic material and eggs procured from The Boss during her time convalescing after giving birth to Major Ocelot to perfect the Super Baby for the Les Enfants Terrible project." Ms. Ice conceded with a nod.
"So it is decided, so shall it be," stated Mr. Authority, verbally slamming the door on the debate. "If that is all that needs to be discussed, then I hereby bring this meeting of the Wiseman's Committee to a close."
Thus a string of fate began its journey into the future, but it is doubtful that even these people, these members of the Wiseman's Committee who ruled America from the shadows, had any idea how this one step would affect how the future would unfold. Would it be to their benefit? Or would it bring about their end? No being in the universe, save the Almighty, knew the answer but it would sure be interesting that was for certain.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
June 11th, 1971, An Underground Lab in the Rocky Mountains, Evening
"What are the latest test results for the Little Boss trials?" Asked Dr. Darren Peterson from his position behind the desk reserved for the head of the facility.
"All fetus' miscarried in the surrogate mother's body. However after thorough examination of the remains, I believe we have discovered the reasons why the fetus did not make it to birth," replied Peterson's right hand man, Dr. Andrew Sanderson, who stood in front of the desk clad in a white lab coat. "With this knowledge, I believe that we will have a much better chance of producing a viable clone when the time comes to employ Big Boss' DNA."
"Good, for it would be trouble for us if we failed to accomplish the goals set out for us by our employers in the defense department." Peterson said as he took the file Sanderson passed him and began to skim through its contents, "They are quite insistent on producing an army of elite soldiers with each member of this group capable of dispatching an entire army on their own. They would be most displeased with us if we failed to meet the set objective."
Indeed it was all too well known by every scientist and soldier stationed at the facility just how important it was to succeed in the appointed task. Each of them had been pulled from their respective places in the world and charged with producing a viable clone of the most skilled soldier seen in this century. Les Enfants Terrible had been officially founded three years ago and had been pressed hard by those in power to maintain a certain rate of progress no matter what. No matter what evidence was produced or argument given, the ones providing the backing refused to acknowledge that scientific achievement did not operate on a set timetable. It was a living thing that could surge ahead by leaps and bounds for a few years, only to fall silent all of a sudden to become dormant for decades. However, twice before since the project's founding in nineteen sixty-eight, the progress had almost come to a complete standstill and twice before that monster came to motivate them to pick up the pace. That damn man, with his long hair and mustache, would come in and act like your typical messenger boy, but then he would use those three revolvers of his to scare everyone present out of their minds. Six people in total had been shot dead from those two visits as an object lesson of what the rest of them could expect if they didn't perform as expected. Needless to say, just about everyone was doing their best to make sure that there would never be a need for a third visit by that Russian cowboy.
"Understood. However there is still enough genetic material from the Little Boss trials for one more attempt. What should we do with it?" Sanderson asked with a little bit of interest that didn't sound all that scientific.
"Put it back into storage for the time being. One more attempt will not make that much of a difference in this project and I believe it is about time that we begin our efforts to produce a viable replica of Big Boss." Darren replied half-heartedly as he turned his seat halfway away from his assistant, "Even with the progress we've made so far it will probably take more than one try to get it right and succeed in achieving our objective. We need to get started as soon as possible."
"Of course." Sanderson said as he turned to exit the office and return to working on the project, "It seems such a shame though that we were unable to produce a viable copy of The Boss. If we could produce both the best female soldier in history and the best male soldier in history, then just think of the possibilities. What if they one day procreated with one another?"
"I'll admit that I too pondered that possibility, but it is unlikely that our backers will permit diverting even a small amount of resources to such an idea. In their minds, The Boss's genetic material had a use only to work the bugs out of the Super Baby method and nothing more." Peterson said with some regret at how things had to be, "To them, nothing less than the best will do and with The Boss being reduced to second place by Big Boss, it makes anything related to her utterly worthless."
"Very well. Good day, Dr. Peterson." Sanderson said continuing out the door to put the last living piece of Big Boss back on ice and to begin work on the true objective of Les Enfants Terrible.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
July 2nd, 1980
Los Angeles, California
White Memorial Medical Center, Noon
I don't know why Mr. Summers keeps accusing me of botching the test results! Sanderson thought angrily as he reviewed the Summers family's file in preparation for the appointment in an hour, If it wasn't for the fact that that kind woman Mrs. Summers is always present, I'd tell the jackass that he has about as much chance of getting Joyce pregnant as that prop skeleton over there!
It had been one of the most frustrating cases he'd ever had the displeasure of handling and it was one that often had him asking why he chose to enter this field of medicine in the first place. Each time he asked that question, though, images sprang to the forefront of his mind to provide an answer causing him more often than not to seek out the bottle of whiskey he kept locked in the bottom drawer of his desk. It had been a little over five years since he had left that horrid project and still his dreams had been tormented by what had gone on there. In the beginning of Les Enfants Terrible, he had been thoroughly convinced that through the process they were developing they were paving the way to a means to defeat death itself. After all, the only reason why people died in this world was because their organs and body parts slowly decayed away with the passage of time. By creating perfect duplicates of the original organs, the other pieces could be transplanted from one to another, allowing the original to live indefinitely. He had even pondered the possibility that perhaps the duplicate would awaken with their memories intact, ranging from the earliest memories right up until the moment the genetic sample was taken. With those two possibilities in mind, he had dived into his work with a vengeance and where his knowledge had fallen short, the project leader was able to help him out.
However as the months and eventually years passed, signs began to appear in results they got from the first few clones that God himself was thwarting their goals. For the most part, he was not a spiritual person but rather a man of science that chose to believe in what he could see, hear and understand. He believed that with enough research, enough experimentation, all of the world's mysteries could be explained from start to finish. It was this belief that carried him through those first few years, but during the last two before he chose to leave the project, he found himself wondering if there was some higher power in the universe. Again and again they had tried to give birth to a perfect clone of Big Boss, but each time the children that were born came with defects that either killed them within a year or shortened their lives considerably. With each failure, he would go back and look at the data to look for the reason why they had been thwarted, but everything looked perfect. His determination lasted another two tries before he could no longer justify remaining a participant in that horror show of science. Surprisingly enough there wasn't any deadly catch to his leaving, no 'accident' arranged to kill him within a year, just a confidentiality contract that he had to sign.
Although that might have more to do with the little piece of the puzzle he'd managed to sneak out with him when he walked out of the facility. It had been due his new mission in life, the one he had sworn to after the last clone died, to work as a doctor to help bring life into this world instead of trying to lengthen the amount of time those already living had on this planet. It had been a snap decision but not one that he regretted even years after he walked out on the project. It was his goal to find a suitable family, parents who, with every breath they took and every word they spoke, made it clear that they would cherish their children, to give The Boss a way to live on. So far none of the families that had come to him for help had quite met his standards, but he knew he would have to make up his mind sooner or later. While freezing the ovum and genetic material did allow for a longer stretch of viability, it was only a matter of time before the components would become completely unusable. If he had it calculated out right, he would have at best another three years to look for an acceptable pair of parents to bestow The Boss' legacy to before it became impossible.
"I don't know why you insist on insulting Dr. Sanderson so much, Hank." Came a familiar voice from the hallway outside his office, "I'm sure he's doing everything he can to help us with this problem. It's probably a lot harder to induce a pregnancy than you think."
Is it that time already? He thought as he looked at the clock and indeed found that an hour had passed since his journey into the past first started.
"I want to believe that, honey, it's just that we've been trying so hard for the past three years to have a child and have nothing to show for it. There's no way that it should take this long for two healthy people like us to have a baby, especially with medical assistance from people like Dr. Sanderson." Hank said with the sound of his voice getting closer to the office door, "The only reason I can come up with for why nothing has worked so far with him is because somehow he's making mistakes. Whether they're on purpose or not, I don't know, but something has to be wrong with how he's doing things if we've got nothing to show for it."
There is nothing wrong with my work but rather your plumbing, you asshole! He thought angry at the very idea that someone would accuse him of doing shoddy work either by accident or by design.
"Well what else is there for us to try?!" Joyce asked with a roar, obviously reaching her limits in terms of tolerating her husband's words, "We've tried it the natural way! We've tried just about every sort of medicine normal doctors can prescribe! Dr. Sanderson is our last hope for having a child! Are you just going to toss that away because it's too difficult!?"
It was almost too painful for him to hear the desperation in Mrs. Summers' voice, the longing for a child, and it was enough to quiet his anger towards Hank by quite bit. It was for people like her that he tried his hardest to pull of miracles where ordinary medicine could not accomplish anything. However, in this case, there was really little he could do besides continue recommending that Hank take the hormone supplements in the hope that they somehow managed to coax something useable out of his system. After all, pregnancy was a two person job and he knew for a fact that there was nothing wrong with Joyce physically that would keep her from giving birth. In the end it was Hank who wasn't putting in his contribution to the process and every treatment he'd tried since the pair came to him had been centered around trying to squeeze just enough of the right stuff out to induce a pregnancy. So far, though, it was like trying to get water from a rock, but that didn't mean he was going to give up just yet. He still had a few other avenues of treatment he could pursue and, if he could keep his temper in check where Hank Summers was concerned, he might just manage to get through to all of them.
"No. I want a child as much as you do and I'm willing to do whatever it takes to have one. It's just…" Hank said sounding gentler and more sincere than ever before, "I can't make sense of all the medical jargon he uses! I know he's trying to explain everything to us as simply as possible, but I'm an architect not a doctor. With everything he says so incomprehensible and us having nothing to show for it after so long, I just go a little crazy sometimes."
A man who believes only in what he knows and gets angry when dealing with what he doesn't understand. He thought to himself with a different tone after hearing this new side of Mr. Summers, Where have I heard that before?
"I know. But please try to be patient." Joyce said with a tender voice that was at odds with her earlier fury.
Hearing this hit him with an odd idea that had someone proposed it to him a week ago, he never would have even considered it. In this one conversation he had heard the fire of a warrior in Joyce's voice and in Hank's a tender, loving nature he had not thought the man capable of. It was then that he reconsidered the standards he had set when he first decided to be the facilitator of The Boss' legacy. Initially he had wanted nothing more than the most loving and supportive family he could find, a family that would keep the child from the horrors of war and allow her to grow up the way The Boss might have had Nazi Germany not brought about the Second World War. However, now he considered whether he would truly be doing what was best for the child by placing her in such a peaceful environment. If certain qualities of a person were indeed burned into their very DNA, then a child born of the genetic material of The Boss would possess the qualities of a soldier. Such a child would likely find a completely peaceful and loving environment as stifling as it was enjoyable. Perhaps what The Boss' offspring truly needed was a place that was equal parts conflict and harmony, such as what the Summers family possessed. While they did come into conflict with one another from time to time, they had also just displayed an ability to reconcile and show just how caring they could be.
Looks like the fated day has finally arrived, Boss. He thought before taking a brief glance upwards towards the heavens, I hope you approve.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Ten Months Later
Los Angeles, California
Beverly Gardens Park
2:15p.m
She's healthy. She's shown no sign of any genetic abnormalities whatsoever. Andrew Sanderson thought with a smile on his face brighter than the sun hanging over his head.
For the first time in what had to have been eight years, he felt like his soul was finally clean of all the blood that he himself had placed there through his foolish actions. It had been touch and go these past ten months with the Summers family, but as of this morning when he got the latest batch of genetic test results back he could safely say that one Elizabeth Anne Summers was as healthy as any other newborn baby in America. It had been one of his biggest concerns throughout the pregnancy that either the period of time it was frozen or the lack of sophisticated monitoring equipment would give rise to a miscarriage. However, aside from a few episodes of false labor, everything happened exactly as it should from beginning to end.
Except for how the fertilized embryo got there in the first place of course.
In that instance it was all him. That is himself, The Boss' egg and a sample of her DNA, to be precise.
Contrary to what an amateur might think, he did not take The Boss' genetic material and insert her DNA into an egg belonging to Joyce Summers. Instead, he took one of The Boss' own eggs and injected her own DNA into it in order to make sure it was one hundred percent Boss through and through. True, he had to infuse it with a little chemical cocktail in order to make sure that an embryo would develop, but in the end it had been successful. An embryo had developed and, over the course of nine months, had developed into a bouncing baby girl with the first signs of blonde hair growing on her head. The past month he had used some clever-sounding medical talk to persuade the Summers family to consent to a battery of tests 'just to be on the safe side'. He had gotten them back two days ago and had revealed the results to the Summers family three hours ago. The tests had been centered on genetics since he wanted to know if she'd have any trouble down the road, and if the results he received were to be believed, then little Eliza didn't have a thing to worry about, whether it was any predispositions to diseases or the specter of all cloning attempts that was rapid cell degeneration at a certain point in the future. The only thing he wasn't certain of was whether or not the time spent in Joyce Summers' body affected the Boss' DNA any. While his time as a member of the Les Enfants Terrible project had greatly increased his knowledge of genetics and cloning, there were still mysteries that defied modern science.
Still, I doubt that the changes will be too severe and only someone who knew The Boss personally should be able to pick out the minute differences. He thought as he reached for the burger in the McDonalds bag next to him.
"Dr. Andrew Sanderson?" Asked a voice he hadn't heard in almost a decade and caused his blood to run cold in an instant.
With fear instilled jerky movements, he looked to the right and found a man in his mid-to-late thirties with blonde hair that was just beginning to thin on his head. Along with an all too familiar mustache, he knew exactly who this man was and why he was here in the park. For a moment the urge to run like the devils of hell were after him cascaded through his body, but once his brain reminded him of two important facts an accepting calm came over him. He knew who this man worked for and if he was here, then there was no escaping his fate no matter what he did. All the exits were no doubt under guard and he wouldn't be at all surprised if three or more snipers had him in their sights at this very moment. In short, he was dead and just hadn't known of it yet. With that realization, all the anxiety drained out of him until all that was left was the stillness of the grave within him.
"Yes?" he said sounding almost robotic with the lack of emotion in his voice.
"I see you remember me and, if that is true, then you likely also know why I am here." The Russian Cowboy said with a friendly smile that never reached his eyes, "You removed something from your last place of work without permission, Dr. Sanderson. True, we didn't know it was you until three weeks ago, but those genetic tests you asked for sent up red flags all over the place."
In the space of three seconds, he used every curse word he had ever heard to berate himself mentally for his foolishness in sending out for genetic testing. At the time he had thought that there was no way they could connect it to him since he was the only one with The Boss' genetic material and, thus, there'd be nothing for them to do a comparison with. Now, though, he realized that the others on the project likely knew what The Boss' DNA looked like well enough to identify it without a sample to use for comparison. Add to that the fact that there were probably paper copies of the analysis done on the genetic samples and he had pretty much committed suicide the moment he chose to have genetic testing done.
"What are you going to do?" He asked, deciding that if he was going to die then he at least wanted to know all the consequences of his actions.
"Well, for you there is only one course of action, as I'm sure you know. My employers do not like loose ends, Dr. Sanderson, nor do they like taking what does not belong to them. However because of what you have accomplished with what you stole, I am inclined to show you some mercy by making it quick and painless." The Russian Cowboy stated in a tone that meant he was actually serious about the mercy part, "As for the baby…well we'll have to wait and see about that. Truth be told, both my employers and your former project comrades were surprised that you had managed to successfully employ what you had stolen. Depending on how she develops, she may be allowed to live."
At least she will be safe. He thought with some relief at the single bit of good news to come out of this final encounter, Hopefully, God willing, she'll do her 'mother' proud and thus live to perhaps experience old age.
"Well, this has been a satisfactory chat, Dr. Sanderson." The Russian Cowboy said as he turned to walk away, "Oh, and give my regards to The Boss when you see her."
With that, the lethal gunslinger walked away and was soon lost in the crowd of civilians.
One minute later instant death penetrated his head in the form of a sniper's bullet sending him into an oblivion from which there was no return.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
January 7th, 1997
The Heart of Zanzibar Land
Office of Big Boss
It's times like these I wish I was just a grunt again! Big Boss thought as he once again went through the tedious task of doing the paperwork necessary to bring his dream to life.
What made it even harder, though, was pushing through the difficulties he was forced to endure through his cybernetic limbs. While it was true that they were a few decades ahead of any other prosthetic he might have had to use, they still didn't come close to that of the 'original parts'. Every day he could feel the machines in his chest pumping and churning to keep him alive. Every day he used his prosthetic arm, its reaction to his mental commands were easily a full second behind what his original arm would have done. Oh, he had learned to adapt to the difficulties so that they didn't interfere with his objective, but just like the rising sun, they were always there when he looked. For what had to be the hundredth time, he cursed his 'son' for being so damn good but at the same time he couldn't help but feel a small bit of pride in Solid Snake's achievement. He had gone into the first Outer Haven an inexperienced rookie of FOXHOUND and come out of it the best soldier of the last two decades.
I shouldn't have underestimated him when I sent him on the mission. Big Boss thought as his mind went back to the time he was still masquerading as the head of FOXHOUND, He is, after all, my 'son', so it should only be natural that he should possess the ability to make the impossible missions possible.
Unlike him, though, Solid Snake had not achieved his final objective. He had failed to kill his mentor and leader before heading back home. It would be a mistake that would cost the FOXHOUND operative dearly when next they met.
He was about to indulge in a little imagining when the door to his office opened up and his ally for almost twenty years walked in with a file folder in hand and an odd look on his face. This was odd because, to his knowledge, Ocelot had been dispatched to head up the raid of a hidden lab that his sources had determined belonged to the Patriots. They had originally been tipped off about it through an examination of the records found at the lab where Les Enfants Terrible had been carried out. He had been so shocked by what he had found there, by what those BASTARDS had tried to do, that he had almost decided to burn the entire place down right then and there. Fortunately Ocelot had been able to persuade him that a thorough search should be carried out before demolishing the place, just in case. After all, if it was a lab belonging to the Patriots then there was a chance that those assholes might have left some crucial piece of information behind. While his men and the world might believe that he wanted to create Outer Haven in order to create a nation made by soldiers, for soldiers, his true objective was far grander. It was his ambition to build such an impressive army, such an impressive empire, that he could eventually challenge the Patriots themselves. Even thirty-three years after Operation Snake Eater, he still couldn't forgive those bastards for what they'd done to The Boss. The hatred born from that betrayal only grew with every subsequent discovery of their evil manipulations and he had committed himself to making sure that they were brought down.
From the look on Shalashaska's face, though, I have a feeling I'm not going to be happy with his news. He thought before setting aside his paperwork in order to give his relative ally his undivided attention.
"You find anything interesting at the lab, Ocelot?" he asked giving away nothing of what was going on inside his head.
"Interesting may be an understatement, Boss. The lab was used for genetic research just as we suspected and while the majority of the information we found there were just copies of Les Enfants Terrible I did come across something different." Ocelot replied, sounding like a ghost from the past had made an appearance, "Apparently they had another set of genetic material from another soldier that they used in their experiments. This set of genetic material was used to isolate and examine the flaws in the Super Baby method so that when the time came to use your set, it would be much more likely to succeed. Needless to say the failures born from the other set were not something one should see on a full stomach."
"Who did this genetic material come from?" He asked as his mind flew through faces of the past attempting to deduce the answer before it was given to him.
"It…it came from The Boss, from your mentor." Ocelot replied with reluctance that implied he wasn't sure if he was doing the right thing by replying truthfully, "Apparently they got it from her shortly after the liberation of France and had been keeping it frozen until Les Enfants Terrible was ready to begin."
Of all the people it could have been, of all the people he had been close to, it had to be the one who he still couldn't stop caring for and fighting for. With speed one would never expect for one his age he got to his feet, reached across the desk and snatched the folder from Ocelot's hand before the Russian gunslinger could do anything. Opening up the folder, he began to skim through the contents one after another, comparing what he saw with his memories of the past. While there were certain names and places that he didn't recognize, there was enough information he was familiar with that he was able to verify some of the information completely. Things like locations where The Boss had been and names of scientists that had been a part of Les Enfants Terrible he was able to identify right away. Other places he was less familiar with took only a moment to compare with information stored on his computer before he was able to confirm their validity. In the end, he was unable to come up with a single reason not to believe the accuracy of the facts in the file nor what they implied. Somehow, right after The Boss gave birth to her son on the battlefield, the Patriots had extracted a large number of her eggs and genetic material for use in genetic experiments. Those experiments had begun in 1968 and had come to an end just before 1972, when Les Enfants Terrible began going down the path that would eventually give birth to David, Cameron and George. However there was no mention in the file as to whether any of the experiments with The Boss' genetic material were successful or not. After all, from the way that Ocelot phrased his statement earlier, the man was silently implying that there were at least partial successes.
"What were the results of these experiments?" he asked, doing his best to keep his fury at the further desecration of The Boss' memory at bay.
"Seven of the ten clones produced from the experiments involving The Joy's material died within months of being conceived, most due to abnormalities in the vital organs," Ocelot replied with unusual discomfort, considering what the man was capable of. "Two of the others managed to survive two full years before their bodies underwent sudden and rapid cellular degeneration that killed them inside of three months."
"And the final clone?" He asked, knowing that Revolver Ocelot would have saved the most interesting for last.
"The final clone was not mentioned in the records specifically but was something I deduced when looking at the total amount of genetic material they had and the average amount used to create each clone. From this I managed to uncover that some of the genetic material was missing from the lab's cold storage units and that it would be just enough for the creation of a final clone." Ocelot replied, making it known how much effort he put into his investigation with the tone of his voice, "While there were no files indicating that, an investigation was conducted to find out what happened to it and I did find something interesting when I ran a search on the lead scientists of the project. A Doctor Andrew Sanderson was murdered by sniper bullet sixteen years ago and I've confirmed that he was definitely a part of the Les Enfants Terrible project. That would have given him access to the cold storage units and placed him beyond suspicion of theft until after it was noticed that the material was missing."
"What was the good doctor's profession prior to his untimely death?" Big Boss asked, knowing an assassination of a loose end when he heard one.
"He apparently specialized in aiding married couples who either had great difficulty producing a child on their own or were incapable of doing so without assistance from modern medicine." Ocelot replied promptly before a look of speculation crossed his face, "Considering what he stole from the lab and the profession he chose afterwards…"
"It is possible that he implanted what he stole into one of his patients" Big Boss said, finishing the sentence spoken by his relative ally. "Find all the families that Sanderson treated from the moment he began after leaving the project to the moment of his death. Look for those that successfully bore children and in particular girls with blonde hair."
"Are you sure its right to divert resources like this? There are already signs that the American CIA and DoD are aware of the growing arms build-up here." Ocelot inquired with some concern in his voice, "Are you willing to risk Outer Haven all for the sake of finding a clone of The Boss?"
"You already know the answer to that, Ocelot. Neither of us would likely be the people we are today if not for her." He replied, making it clear his decision was final in the matter, "Besides, most of the paperwork has been completed already. Now all that is needed is for the resources we purchased to pass through the gates of Zanzibar Land and everything will be ready."
"Very well. I will begin the search of Dr. Sanderon's records immediately and have an answer for you by the end of the week." Ocelot stated, finally conceding to his tentative ally's demand.
With that the two went their separate ways, but if Big Boss had placed a camera at just the right angle in his office, he would have seen a sinister smile blossom on Ocelot's face as he left.
What did it mean? How would it affect the future? No one could say for certain but given that it was Ocelot doing the smiling it couldn't be good.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Sunnydale, California
Main Street
Two and a Half Weeks Later, Nighttime
I wonder how many more times I can use the 'studying with Willow' excuse before Mom actually clues in that that's not actually what I'm doing. Buffy thought as she walked down main street Sunnydale on her way to the first of many cemeteries her Watcher, Giles, wanted her to patrol.
While normally she would have tried to beg off patrolling, especially since they just got finished with that organ stealing demon and Sid the Dummy, Giles had looked so frazzled by nearly loosing his head that she took pity on him. Instead of trying her best to tilt the scales a bit more in favor of her normal life as Buffy Anne Summers, she was willing to partake of her Slayerness if it meant making things easier for Giles. Thus, as she walked out of the library with stakes hidden on her person and a couple of daggers hidden in her purse to slay the baddies that went boo in the night, she figured she'd focus mostly on the graveyards that usually had the highest level of activity first and then, if she had time afterwards, she'd give two or three of the smaller ones a once over. That should be enough to make the Brit Librarian happy for a little while and maybe it'd be enough to make him cut her some slack later on when she wanted to go on a date.
As she neared the first cemetery a feeling came over her like she was being watched but, for some reason, it felt different from when she knew a vamp was watching her. With them it felt like a predator was circling her, eagerly seeking an opening before charging in to attack. This feeling that was bugging her felt more like she was being watched by someone who was a comrade but not necessarily a friend. She could feel no open hostility from the person observing her but, at the same time, the intensity that she sensed was unnerving for her. Deciding to move things onto more familiar ground, she picked up the pace a little and entered the area with row upon row of headstones as well as crypts. This was her battleground, her home turf, so if the person watching her tried anything, she'd have the advantage rather than them.
For the next fifteen minutes she waited for her unseen observer to make a move, to act, but nothing happened. However so focused was she on what was behind her that she almost didn't see the group of vamps coming at her until they were just inside of close quarters combat range. From there the fighting started and she fell into a tempo that she had always had almost from the very moment she discovered she was different from every other girl. The vampires she was facing weren't anything special, the oldest one apparently being from the early eighties if his yucky, falling-apart-shirt was any hint, but there were enough of them that she had to stay on her toes. All through the battle, though, she could still feel that she was being watched from a distance but could not for the life of her figure out whether it was friend or foe. She was reasonably certain that the observer was human since her senses weren't picking up anything demonic, but that didn't necessarily make the situation any better. What her occasionally-used strategic mind also told her, though, that if the person or people watching her were enemies then they were getting a decent show of what she could do. If there was anything Giles pounded into her head day after day, it was that information about an enemy was vital to defeating it.
So if I keep giving whoever's watchin' a free show, they might be a problem if they decide to make with the 'kill Buffy' trend later. She thought as she ducked under a vamps kick before delivering a thrust kick of her own, So I'd better use 'it' and end this now before they pick up on too much of my moves.
'It' was a part of her she gained the day she first became a Slayer but, as the months passed, she came to believe that it was not a part of the Slayer essence itself. 'It' used guns, 'it' used bombs and 'it' used a form of close quarters combat she had never been taught by either Giles or Merrick. This thing wasn't some inner warrior per se, but when she drew on it, she found her moves became more precise, more efficient, allowing her to slay multiple vampires in less than twenty seconds. One might think that such a thing would be something she'd use in every battle but no one but her knew the cost of tapping into 'it'. By tapping into 'it', her mind was plagued by memories and images not her own. Memories of killing people, real people, not demons, sometimes in jungles but other times on beaches with people dying all around her. While they didn't really affect how her body moved, they shook her to the core and for at least a week afterwards she would have nightmares involving these memories again and again. Eventually they'd fade and be as though they never existed in the first place, but the moment she tapped into 'it' once more, they'd return forcing her to wait another week before being rid of them. That was why she was so reluctant to tap into 'it' even during times when she truly needed it, but with an unknown person watching her every move and her not knowing the intentions of that person, she couldn't risk letting him or her see every move in her playbook.
Like the flicking of a switch, she tapped into 'it' and immediately her fighting style changed, much to the shock of the vampires fighting her. Gone were the moves drawn from several Asian martial arts and in their place were moves centered on defeating an enemy quickly as well as efficiently. Attacks to the joints, attacks that broke bone and attacks that brought the enemy to the ground in the blink of an eye became the dominant force in her fighting style. She didn't even waste time trying to play the vamps against one another before staking them. Instead the moment that an opening showed itself where she could end it in one move, she went for it slamming a stake into a dead heart or pulling a dagger from her purse for decapitation. In less than forty seconds the group of ten vampires had been reduced to numerous piles of ash on the grass of the cemetery to be blown away by the wind. She could sense that the person or persons were still observing her but hopefully, by ending the battle as quickly as she had, they wouldn't have learned anything too useful about her.
Still better cut my patrol short and head back to Giles. She thought as she locked 'it' back into the section of her mind where 'it' would not bother her, If there's some new player in town with enough brain cells to actually watch me before fighting me, then I have to find out who they are before the hitting starts.
Tucking her weapons back into their concealed spots on her person, she swiftly headed for the nearest exit without actually breaking into a run or even a jog. As she sensed herself leaving the field of vision of whoever was observing her, she felt an odd sense of nostalgia come over her. It wasn't particularly strong, more like a faint scent that is barely perceivable even to Slayer senses, but it seemed so out of place, considering what was going on, that she stopped to look back in the direction where her observer/s had been. She saw nothing, no clue as to who it had been, but the oddness of what she just experienced in terms of the silent observation and the feeling of nostalgia worried her a bit. Enemies that confronted her directly usually fell into the category of either stupid or insanely powerful, with sometimes both being the case. Those types of enemies, though, were usually one trick ponies and once Giles told her the trick to beating them, they tended to get dead real quick. The enemies that stayed hidden, took peeks at her from afar and then attacked her when they were ready and she was not however were the ones she really had to watch out for.
Looks like the Master has some competition now. She thought with mock happiness since she knew that this would likely mean her fighting a battle on two fronts.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Atop a Roof With a Perfect View of the Cemetery, Same Time
"Was that--?" Ocelot asked with surprise at the events that just took place before his very eyes.
"C.Q.C in its purest form. Not that watered down crap they teach to the U.S Special Forces these days." Big Boss answered with a hint of nostalgia in his voice, "It looks like this girl is a veritable treasure, eh, Ocelot?"
"Indeed. When I discovered her existence, I anticipated nothing more than a physical copy of The Joy, but that wouldn't account for her knowing pure C.Q.C like that." Shalashaska replied, recovering from his earlier surprise in order to examine this development more carefully, "Also, what were the things she killed?"
"I believe you know as well as I do what they were Ocelot. Vampires." He replied as he recalled past encounters with beings that fit the nosfurato M.O.
"Vampires!? Ridiculous!" Shalashaska blurted out in denial of the idea despite what he had just witnessed.
"It would appear that vampires are not the things of horror stories we thought they were, my friend." He said as his mind whirred to figure out what it all meant, "Eliza showed extreme skill in dispatching them even before she used C.Q.C to finish the last ones off. That implies that she's been instructed in how to kill them, trained by someone with detailed knowledge of these creatures and their attributes. Get in contact with your sources in the area. I want to know everything about who taught The Joy's daughter how to fight the undead."
"I'll get right on it." Ocelot said before turning away and heading for the ladder they'd used to get on the roof in the first place.
He waited until he was certain Adamska was gone before he let down the face he showed everyone and once more took on the face of an old soldier named Jack. It was a side of himself that he almost never let out anymore because he couldn't afford to be anyone other than Big Boss to them. It was Big Boss they respected, a soldier without peer who could still crush an opponent despite his advanced years, and it was Big Boss that they followed. They would never follow a man still haunted by the people he'd killed or the mentor he could never truly surpass, even if she had been dead for decades. Such a man would be perceived as mortal and weak. To control and lead the forces he was assembling in Zanzibar Land, they had to see him as the legend he was and like most legends words like 'unbeatable' or 'unkillable' often got mixed in. That was why the only time he took the mask off was when he was sure he was alone or when he something managed to pierce his defenses to strike at the core of who he was. This incident, setting eyes on The Boss' daughter and watching her employ C.Q.C, could be considered a combination of those two sets of circumstances. For in seeing a young woman who so reminded him of The Joy, 'Jack' was brought back to the surface from his deep slumber within the darkness of Big Boss' mind. Seeing her employ a style of hand to hand combat that almost no one knew how to perform in its original form met the specifications of the latter scenario as well.
She's shorter than I remember The Boss being but that could be explained by the surrogate mother's influence. He thought as he recalled what he'd seen through his night vision goggles, No she's a copy of The Joy, alright. The question now, though, is what do I do with this information.
His first instinct was to approach her with an offer to train her and bring her closer to her 'mother's' level of combat expertise. The young woman could certainly use it if she was fighting vampires on a regular basis. He knew a few of the soldiers that had agreed to side with him in Zanzibar Land would be perfect instructors for her and were sufficiently loyal to him that he could trust them with the job. Aside from that, there wasn't a whole lot he could do until he knew more about how she could do what she did and who was backing her at the moment. He knew that there was no way that genetics could explain her C.Q.C and martial arts skills so that only left an outside source instructing her. In order to reach that level of efficiency at such a young age, though, the girl would have to have begun learning at a fairly young age. Six or seven would be his guess, unless she'd undergone some sort of accelerated learning procedure, but those were often brutal in both mind as well as body, leaving only a select few standing afterwards. While it was true he couldn't see much detail from his vantage point, he'd not seen any of the classic signs of a young woman who'd been put through the wringer from an early age.
No, she carries herself more like a warrior than a beaten down soldier. He thought replaying what he'd seen minutes ago in his mind, Heh! You're an interesting mystery, Eliza. I look forward to unraveling it.
With that thought in mind, he turned and headed for the ladder that Ocelot had used minutes ago but with a certain annoyance since his cybernetics made ladders a pain to use.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Two Weeks Later, A Rented Estate on the Outside of Town, Noon
"What have you found out for me, Ocelot?" Big Boss asked from behind the desk in the estate's library.
"Something that I think you'll find both interesting and disturbing, Boss. According to the information I managed to acquire, you were right that vampires are real but it's not just them that go bump in the night." Shalashaska replied, looking a bit put out himself, "Apparently every mythological monster or demon the world's ever known exists for real in some part of the world, along with a few others I've never seen or heard of before. It's been like this for thousands of years apparently with various governments, societies and organizations doing their best to keep this fact of life from going public. Just about every nation on the planet has a division of their own military set aside to deal with the unusual and the strange. I've even heard rumors that the Unite Nations has one called Jericho."
While it was without a doubt shocking that something so widespread could be kept from people of the world, he knew it could be done because the Patriots were doing it every single day. That every nation on the planet had at least something set aside in their armed forces for dealing with these demons was not much of a surprise either, since they'd have to be stupid not to do something about the monsters. Still, all this was mere context and background for the answer he really wanted. Adamska knew what he really wanted.
"Where does Ms. Summers fit into all of this?" He asked with some firmness to let Ocelot know to stop beating around the bush.
"That…is the disturbing part. According to my contact, she's a Slayer." Ocelot replied sounding almost angry about this part of the debriefing.
"A Slayer?" he asked prodding his ally to continue.
"A Slayer is apparently a young woman, always in her mid to late teens, who has been chosen by some higher power to stand against these demons. The Slayer line has existed since before recorded history and has been responsible in some way for averting apocalypse after apocalypse." Ocelot explained, not liking where he was heading with his explanation, "However there is only ever one at a time, one per generation if the stories are true, and they are always posted in the areas of greatest danger. These areas are demonic or supernatural hot zones where dangerous levels of evil gather and need to be dealt with before they get any larger."
Now this bit of information had him stunned.
A line of warriors stretching back to the beginning of time defending the world from paranormal evil unflinchingly even knowing the danger they face. It saddened him, though, that they were all selected so young and it bothered him that whoever 'called' them couldn't wait until their chosen ones were older before dragging them into the dark. Still, if Ocelot's sources were accurate, this sisterhood of warriors was owed a sizeable debt by every living person on this planet many times over. They were also good at what they did if they went into hell on Earth willingly and managed to pull through despite the threats being all around them. If that was the case, though, then what was bothering Shalashaska so much?
"What's the bad news, Adamska? From the way you tell it, these ladies are heroes to the whole planet." He said, wanting the mustached man in front of him to just spit out whatever was getting him worked up.
"The bad news Boss is that Slayers don't exactly have a long life expectancy once they've been called. From what little I've been able to dig up in the past two weeks, most Slayers are considered gifted if they manage to make it to their eighteenth birthday. Only four in the entire history of the Slayer line have managed to stay alive to see their twentieth birthday." Ocelot replied, this time there was no mistaking the man's outrage at this face.
A feeling that was quickly mirrored by him as he struggled to comprehend that The Boss' daughter might at best have another two or three years to live before her Calling claimed her life. Who the hell was supporting these girls!? If the death rate of these Slayers was so high then why wasn't something done about it!? If he had been in charge of a unit with those kinds of stats, he'd immediately put someone to work to find out what the hell was causing his soldiers to die so quickly and put a stop to it! With this rolling around in his head there was but a single question burning in his mind that he wanted answered right then and there.
"Who are they Ocelot? Who are the people that are allowing such…such…blatant negligence to happen?!" Big Boss asked, looking like he wanted nothing more than to drop a nuke on those people right then and there.
"They're called the Watcher's Council and they've been in control of the Slayer line in some form for centuries, if not millennia. Currently they're based out of Great Britain with safe houses and installations worldwide, with operatives in just about all the major world governments. While there are some who'd debate their claim that they are the elite amongst organizations that deal with the paranormal, they certainly have a great deal of influence." Adamska replied, sharing his comrade's displeasure at the information, "What's worse, though, is their practices with potential Slayers!"
"Explain!" Was all he could get out amidst his fury at this Illuminati organization that held the lives of your woman with such complacency.
"Apparently aside from using their worldwide network to monitor demonic activity, they also use it to locate girls with the potential to one day become the next active Slayer. Once such potentials are found, they're taken from their parents, sometimes with lies and sometimes by force, and essentially brainwashed to become the perfect, obedient chosen warrior," Revolver Ocelot explained, showing that even he had limits as to how far he'd go in condoning certain actions. "They are kept cut off from the rest of society for the most part, except for aspects that have some value in their training. No friends, no contact with their family and their entire day-to-day schedule oriented on preparing themselves for the possibility that they will be Called one day. The only pleasant part of it all is that if they make it to age twenty-two without being Called, they are fully provided for and sometimes offered positions within the Council."
The rage within him was threatening to burn him alive from the inside out. These Watchers were no better than the Patriots! Using up hundreds of young warriors, depriving them of the very things that make life worth living and then letting them die without losing one wink of sleep over it! It was inexcusable! Without even taking time to consider everything, he made a conscious decision that would change everything that followed.
"Begin gathering every scrap of information you can about this Watcher's Council! I want to know where each installation is, I want a list of who the members are and a complete work up done on their offensive/defensive capabilities." He declared in a way that could be nothing other than a direct order, "Don't stop until you know more about this Council than they do!"
"What are you planning to do Boss?" Ocelot asked with surprise and a little bit of concern.
"What does it sound like? I'm planning to either burn the entire organization to the ground or absorb it into Outer Haven completely." He said with an ice cold voice that almost made Adamska shiver.
"But what about Zanzibar Land?" Ocelot asked with some concern, "We're only a little over a year from completion and the intelligence agencies around the world are already beginning to notice our movements. Can we really afford to divert our resources like this?"
"As the old saying goes, Ocelot, 'you have to spend money to make money'." He replied with a firm glare from his one good eye, "While it will delay the completion of Zanzibar Land by quite a bit, if we successfully absorb the Watcher's Council then we will gain an international network of paranormal intelligence operatives. Considering how widespread this supernatural threat is, I'd say it's a fair trade off."
"Indeed. What about Eliza though? How will she fit into all of this?" Shalashaska asked after nodding in agreement of The Boss' plan.
"She will be the cornerstone of the operation. After all, how can I leave her out of a mission that will have such a profound effect on her life?" He asked in reply to his comrade's question.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Three Weeks After the Season 1 Finale
The Streets of Los Angeles, California
Who am I? Buffy thought as she plodded down the sunlit streets of Los Angeles with her thoughts almost entirely focused inwards.
It was a question she'd been asked herself almost every day since Xander had brought her back from the land of the dead. It wasn't a question brought about by the brush with her own mortality the way most people would think, but rather what she experienced while she was dead. Even twenty-one days later she remembered the flower-filled clearing near the lake. Even after numerous tries to suppress everything, she still remembered the woman in the grey and white combat outfit standing ten feet in front of her, staring at her. More than that, though, was what she discovered after defeating the Master and being given time by her friends to cope with everything. She now knew things she had not known before and could never have come across during her decade and a half of life. She knew weapons specifications, she knew combat tactics and now she had names to go with every face that had shown up in her nightmares after tapping into 'it'.
That last bit was something she could really have done without.
It had been all of the confusion she had felt that had prompted her to agree to spend time with her father, even though the two of them were not on the best of terms since his last visit. He'd taken her back to L.A and taken her to all the places where the good times had taken place before he and her Mom had divorced. No doubt he was trying to butter her up or at least make amends for what had happened last time. Normally she would have confronted him on it but, after everything that had happened, she had just put on the face he probably expected her to have while keeping the truth hidden inside.
Today, though, she had felt so suffocated by his efforts to rebuild burnt bridges that she'd managed to convince him to give her some alone time. She'd said that she wanted to look up some of her old friends and hang out with them but the truth of the matter was that she needed to deal with some of the mess that had built up in her mind. So, for the past few hours, she had been going through the information that had taken up residence in her mind without her permission. Most of it was military information, the sort of things that experienced solo operatives committed to memory, along with a few mission details mixed in for variety. The thing was that most of the information was at least thirty years out of date, if not more. Granted, she didn't exactly know a whole lot about the military of today, but some discreet use of a computer had helped her match what she now knew with recorded facts. She hadn't delved any deeper than most normal people would due to certain issues like National Security and her distinct lack of hacker abilities, but it had been enough to confuse her even more. Why would she suddenly have such detailed info about being a soldier and why was it so out of date?
It all comes back to that woman from when I was dead! She thought angrily, since she was certain that if she just knew who that serious looking woman was everything'd fall into place.
However, no matter how much she looked into it at the local library or online, she could find no one who had a face that matched the woman from the other side. That pretty much brought her to where she was right at that moment, which was walking almost on auto-pilot towards MacArthur Park so she could think in peace. It hadn't been a place she'd gone to all that often with her friends back when she had been going to Hemery High School, but she did remember how peaceful it had felt to be there. Surrounded more by nature than by concrete and glass, it had touched a part of her deep inside making her feel like she could be happy there.
It took five minutes but eventually she was arrived at a park bench that she recalled her mother sitting in when she was younger. She only had a vague impression of what had happened during that visit, but she knew she'd been happy then and almost completely carefree. Sitting down, she took in the almost empty park and all that it contained, trying to soak in the peace the place embodied for her so she could continue to examine the facts in her head unimpeded.
This lasted for about thirty minutes before she heard the sounds of walking feet coming her way as well as something…oddly mechanical sounding. It wasn't a sound most people would be able to hear and only her Slayer enhanced senses allowed her the sensitivity to pick it up as clearly as she was. When she tried to place the sound, all she could come up with was a complex remote controlled toy car or robot, but that didn't quite cover it either. It sounded far too complex for that but it was the closest comparison she could make that made any sense. Despite this puzzle, she chose to ignore it in favor of staying focused on her own issues since the last thing she needed was to have another mystery on her hands. However when the mechanical sound came to a stop less than three feet from her and a shadow blocked out part of the sun, it looked like the universe wasn't willing to give her a choice in the matter. With a sigh she looked up at the person who'd decided to interrupt her private time and was left with eyes like dinner plates by what she saw.
Standing before her in a suit and trenchcoat was a man who looked to be in his early to mid-seventies with a beard around his mouth and an eye patch over his right eye. Despite his age, the man looked like he could beat someone half his age easily in a one on one fight. However, what had her mind frozen in shock though was that she knew him, she knew his name, because it was one of the faces from her nightmares. It was a turn of events that she'd never thought was possible but standing right in front of her was a link to 'it' as well as the knowledge she'd received from her near death experience. To this she could only say one thing, one word, and it was enough to make the man in front of her just as shocked as she was.
"Jack?" She asked with her mind supplying the man's name along with an emotion she didn't know the source of.
For what seemed like an eternity, the two of them looked at each other with unmitigated disbelief at what had just been presented before them. Standing up in front of him, she couldn't shake the feeling that she should be able to look him in the eyes instead of barely coming eye level with his chest. However, with an adjustment in the positioning of her head, she looked up into that one blue eye and in it she saw many of the emotions that were going through her body at that very moment. Eventually, though, she managed to get a firm enough grip on her emotions that she felt she might be able to have a decent conversation with the man without sounding like she belonged in a padded room.
"Tell me about her." She said, knowing instinctively that Jack would know she was referring to the woman she'd met on the other side.
With a look of nostalgia on his face, Jack sat down on the bench next to her and, after taking a moment to gather his thoughts, he looked ready to tell her what she wanted to know.
"I never knew her real name, but to me she was simply The Boss. She was my mentor and taught me everything I knew about being a soldier." He said with a tone that spoke of great respect for the woman, "For ten years we worked together on missions and, between the two of us, we created an entirely new form of hand-to-hand combat that's used by the U.S military to this very day. She was probably the single most important person in my life and the person who made me who I am today."
Jack went on to tell her about The Boss, some of the missions they'd gone on together as well as some hang out times they'd had, and through it all she knew he was giving her the edited version. It wasn't that she was suspicious of him or that she consciously thought he was trying to deceive her, but rather that at certain points in his tale he skipped over facts that she knew should have been there. Not that she knew what those facts were, of course, but like a book that has a page torn out of it, she knew that there was something between point A and point C that he wasn't telling her. By the end of his Reader's Digest version of The Boss' life, she found that she too could respect the woman whose face she had only seen in the realm between the living and the dead. The Boss was a woman who was a professional soldier, a hero to her country, and someone who embraced her calling as her purpose rather than a bothersome burden. She wished she could be like that with her Calling as the Slayer, but the problem was that The Boss had probably chosen to be a soldier whereas she had gotten drafted by fate for her job.
While it was true that she probably would have said 'thanks but no thanks' if she'd been asked, the act of actually giving her a choice that she would have appreciated. Still, perhaps The Boss hadn't had as much of a choice as one might have thought, considering the times she lived in and the kind of person she was. After all, while a person could be given many choices indeed, their own personality and beliefs trimmed the number of choices down to a couple. She guessed it was that whole nature versus nurture thing, where people couldn't really decide if it was your genes that determined what you'd be or your environment. For The Boss, perhaps, her own nature and personality made becoming a soldier the only choice she had given the times she was living in.
Am I any different? Buffy asked when she thought about her Calling as the Slayer.
She'd like to say that she was, in fact that was what the majority of the voices in her head were screaming out, but then there was this one voice that cut through them all. Not by volume, but rather by conviction and determination. While she might not have chosen to become the Slayer, that was what she was now and there was no going back to that blissfully ignorant Queen of Hemery High School person she'd been. She was sure that if a spell or a potion existed out there that could make her NOT be the Slayer, then demons would have found it years ago. So, in a way, her mystical 'genes' as the Slayer not only made her physically capable of being the Slayer, but she knew all too well the compulsion to kick demon ass when she saw one. Maybe she was in a similar position as The Boss, possessing all the qualities necessary to become a great soldier, with the only thing missing being acceptance of that kind of future. Maybe she could cut down on at least half, if not all, of her misery and grief if she just quit fighting her calling every step of the way. The part of her that remembered what came before yelled at the top of its lungs not to let something she didn't choose or particularly want determine her destiny. It went on to specify about how destiny didn't exist and that people made their own futures, with their own choices.
She really wished she could believe that but the evidence to the contrary was pretty convincing.
"The Boss might not have had a perfect life, she probably hated being a soldier starting out, but eventually she came to accept it. You know why?" Jack asked with an odd tone in his voice.
"Why?" She asked, wanting to know how to accept a life that had her dying in two or three years.
"She accepted it because she knew that if she didn't, she'd only be condemning herself to a painful death. On the battlefield, you have to give yourself totally over to the mission at hand because even the smallest of doubts or reluctance could mean death for a soldier." Jack replied in a voice that made it clear he knew what he was talking about, "It's the same for just about everyone in life, but for warriors, for soldiers, letting our doubts, fears and dislike of the job get the better of us means more than just getting fired. It means dying."
Could he be right? Buffy thought as she delved into her memories and the memories of 'it' to determine if the words Jack spoke were the truth or merely sweet sounding words.
She'd never really thought of it before, mostly 'cause she didn't like dwelling on her future as The Slayer, but she did find evidence of some truth to what the aged soldier had said. Despite the seriousness of certain situations back in Sunnydale, there had always been this undercurrent of resentment to her Calling, a desire to defy it so that she could go back to being normal, buzzing in her mind. While she had, at the time, not believed for one second, that something like that could make her a hair slower on the draw with a crossbow or dangerously sloppy with how she fought her death at the hands of the Master implied otherwise. When he'd caught her arrow, when he'd managed to maneuver around her so easily, he just assumed that it was his strength as a Master vampire that was responsible. However that was exposed as the lie it was since, not more than an hour or so later, she managed to thoroughly kick his ass, toss him through a skylight and onto the pointy end of a piece of table. The only thing different that she could see between the two incidents was that after being revived by Xander, after coming close to taking up permanent residence in the afterlife, was that the only thing in her mind had been to stop the Master from succeeding and killing him. Silent were the doubts she had and gone was the defiance she showed her Calling, usually falling apart like a staked vamp. At that precise moment and straight through to the next day, she had completely embraced her Calling.
The question she had to ask herself was: could she find the strength to truly embrace her Calling and leave the protests of the person she once was behind her?
"I can help you find that kind of strength, that resolve, if you will let me." Jack said honestly as well as sincerely, "It won't be easy but I think that if you make it, then you can finally have some say in what happens in your life rather than just letting yourself be swept about by the times."
It didn't even take her a full second to come to a decision.
"I'd like that."
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Watcher's Council Headquarters, Great Britain, The Main Meeting Room
A Little Over Two Years Later
"We've just lost contact with Andrews in Brasilia!" Cried out one of the many employees of the Watcher's Council who was trying in vain to rally the troops worldwide.
"Try the wet works team we have stationed Sao Paulo! If you can make contact, have them leave immediately for Andrews' last known location!" Travers ordered even though he had a gut feeling they'd find nothing of use when they arrived.
"Right away sir," said the harried man who immediately called up the number of the team in question.
Travers was not one to panic but the events of the past month had left him wondering if he was indeed bearing witness to the end of the Watcher's Council. For the past four weeks, numerous Council compounds or installations worldwide had either gone silent or come under attack from unknown forces. It had only been a handful at the beginning, leading them to believe that it was just one of the more organized demon organizations making an attempt at obliterating the only thing standing in the way of their conquering the world. It had happened a few times over the years since the Council had been originally founded, but none of them lasted for very long since they were swiftly dealt with. Believing that to be the case this time, he'd immediately sent out orders for their more skillful wet works teams to begin investigating the more likely demonic suspects. That had taken a turn for the worse almost from the very beginning since, after only three weeks of looking into the matter, each and every team had been eradicated by the demon organizations. The only clue as to why was a garbled transmission from the leader of one of the mercenary teams indicating that the demons had been waiting for them.
From there things had gone from bad to outright terrifying as the rate at which Council locations worldwide fell off the proverbial grid quadrupled. That had left him and his subordinates scrambling to get into contact with every Watcher's Council asset worldwide in order to initiate the Dante protocols. These protocols were emergency measures created three hundred years ago after a particularly strong demonic organization very nearly crippled the Council completely. Essentially it meant that all field personnel were to relocate to the main safe houses in their region, activate all of the mystical defenses ingrained therein and await further instructions. Each main safe house had in its basement a potent teleportation circle carved into the floor that would carry the field personnel directly to the basement within the very building he currently stood in. However that circle was only to be used if the protective wards and seals on the main safe houses were about to fail, since it was from them that the circle drew the power it needed for such a long distance teleportation. Still, if the protections on the building were about to fail, it was hardly worth it to waste energy trying to keep them up in the first place.
However, despite such trustworthy safeguards being in place, there had been no communication with any of the safe houses after the protective wards had gone up, nor had there been any arrivals in the basement that might have been able to provide useful information on the identity of this devastating force that was attacking them. There'd been a few suggestions to extend the olive branch to Slayer Summers, Slayer Kendra or Slayer Faith, but he'd shot those ideas down immediately. It'd be a cold day in hell before he'd consider forgiving those three turncoats! Even though it had been months since the three of them had sent in their letters of resignation, it still made him furious to think that those little upstarts had abandoned their Calling and turned their backs on the Council. He had even been in the process of organizing an operation to eliminate the three of them, but the current crisis had forced him to put that plan on the shelf for the time being. Once this great evil had been defeated, though, he would return his attention to terminating those renegades and putting the Slayer line back where it belonged: in his hands.
"Sir! Ms. Parker reports activation of the teleportation circles in the basement!" Another of his subordinates reported with a little hope in her eyes.
He had to admit the news improved his demeanor a bit as well, but he made sure that it didn't affect his disciplined frame of mind. While finally being able to question survivors of an attack would be most welcome, he knew it'd be only the first step in mounting a counterattack against their unknown enemy. If he was correct and the silent installations worldwide were either captured or destroyed, then it was a blow to the Council one way or another, win or lose. Nevertheless, time was of the essence.
"Tell her to escort the survivors up at once! I want to speak with them immediately and finally learn the name of this force that is attacking us." He ordered as he began to collect his thoughts and formulate a list of questions in his mind.
It took about fifteen minutes or so but eventually Ms. Parker walked through the door to the main meeting room with five people behind her that he didn't immediately recognize. They were dressed like Watchers but he couldn't quite place which region they were from or whom their commander had been. Odd, since there was always a yearly meeting of all of the field commanders in Great Britain to discuss new developments or concluding old business. Striding up to them, he put on his best 'honorable leader' face and tried to make it seem as though they were old friends of his that he was glad to see still alive.
"I cannot express enough my relief at seeing you all still alive. I had feared the worse given the current situation." He said, shaking the hand of the man whom he believed was the leader of the group of survivors, "Now, while I am sure you would like a moment to rest and regain your strength, I must ask you a few questions first."
"You want to know the identity of the attacking forces." The leader stated not as a question, but as a statement of face.
"Yes, that would be the most pressing of the questions." Travers said, glad that the man was sharp enough to know what his priorities were.
"Everything I know is on this piece of paper sir. I managed to acquire it from one of the bodies of the people who attacked the safe house." The leader said as he pulled a single piece of folded paper from his coat pocket and handed it over, "I think you'll be most interested in what's written on it."
While somewhat puzzled by what could be so crucial that it could be contained on a single piece of paper, curiosity got the better of him Travers took the piece of paper and unfolded it, thus revealing the contents for his eyes to see. Written in elegant lettering was his name, a single sentence and the name he presumed of the person responsible for the assault on the Council.
Quentin Travers
Today is the day that the Sisterhood of the Slayer takes back control of their futures.
--The Boss
"How did they know my name? Who is this 'Boss'?" He asked, uncertain as to why the man in front of him placed so much importance on this piece of paper.
"Why wouldn't a Slayer know the name of her enemy?" The leader asked rhetorically as though the answer to his questions was obvious, "As to whom The Boss is, the answer is simple. She is our leader."
A split second later, all five survivors flickered, rippled and then they were not who they had once been. In the place of five ordinary looking Watchers were five black-clad people that looked like ninjas but were armed with a combination of state of the art military hardware and melee weaponry. He barely had time to express his shock at this development before the five ninjas exploded into action, leaping and lunging across the room killing people with a single attack. He tried to come up with some kind of strategy, some orders he could give to turn the tables on these invaders, but he was too overcome with shock to move a muscle. By the time he had reacquired enough of his mind to do something, fully three quarters of the room's occupants were dead with the remainder backed into a corner with him.
While not the people I would have chosen to fight alongside, they are still skilled enough to make a fight of this! He thought as he reached into his coat pocket for the spell amplification amulet he had taken to always carry with him since the crisis began.
"Stand fast, my friends! They may have drawn first blood but we can still win this!" Quentin said, trying to inspire courage and conviction in those around him.
"You're wrong, sir. This battle is over," came a cold female voice from his left.
As he turned to see who the coward was he suddenly found himself surrounded on all sides by the remaining HQ Watcher's with blades in their hands and hatred of him in their eyes. It was in that moment that he had an epiphany as he realized that these people hadn't escaped death at the ninja's hands by chance, but rather by design. Everything from the moment Ms. Parker reported the activation of the teleportation circle in the basement to this very moment had been planned! Worse yet was that the majority of his 'comrades' were those that had been manning the communication gear and information network. If they were all traitors, then there was no telling what the true situation was in the outside world. For all he knew, the woman spoke the truth and every last Watcher compound and safe house on the planet could have fallen. The shock he felt, however, soon turned to outrage as he couldn't believe that he…that the Council had been so swiftly brought down and with aid from the inside! While he knew his death was likely close at hand, he had to know one thing before he died or else he knew his soul would not find peace.
"Who is this Boss of yours?! Why is she doing this!?" He yelled out, not caring if it hastened his death.
"I believe Commander Huntington already answered that, Travers," came a voice that at once sent a chill throughout his body and fanned the flames of outrage within him.
Looking towards the door that Ms. Parker had brought the survivors through, he saw coming through it a young woman, eighteen or nineteen years of age, dressed in clothes unlike any he had ever seen before but that had certain militaristic elements in them that made it clear it was made for warfare. With weapons similar to those wielded by the ninjas, he knew that if she wanted to she could wipe out every last person in the room in under a minute. He knew this because he better than anyone else knew what gifts the Slayer essence bestowed upon one of its bearers. With the revelation of the mastermind of this coup, all the pieces began to fall into place for the most part with the only unanswered part being 'how'. How had Buffy Summers managed to assemble a force large enough to bring down the Watcher's Council? It made no sense! She was only a teenager! There was no way that she should have been able to pull off something like this without someone powerful helping her!
"As for why I'm doing this, I believe my note pretty much said it all. My fellow Slayers and the potentials that have chosen to stand with us are taking back our futures." Summers said as she continued to walk towards him with her ninjas flowing aside to allow her to pass, "No longer will you and the old regime of Watchers force us to fight an uphill battle with archaic equipment and no back up. No longer will being a Slayer mean death to some innocent young woman within three years of being Called. As of today, we are FREE!"
He barely had a moment to open his mouth to deliver a few scathing last words before Summers drew her sidearm, aimed it right between his eyes and fired.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Twelve Years Later, One Day Prior to the Events Aboard The Big Shell
Unknown Location
"Have the portents been confirmed, Metis?" Buffy asked as she slid her arms into the sleeves of her sneaking suit.
"Yep. I've matched the references the precogs gave us with the intelligence the Colonel and Commandant Dolph managed to get through to us," Willow replied as she tapped away at an inconceivable rate, using her realistic looking cyber-hands. "Dead Cell survivors, Solidus, aka ex-president George Sears, Olga Gurlukovich and her people are in the city undergoing preparations to board Big Shell."
"And him?" Buffy asked as she felt the miniature servos in her suit come online and the suit become uncomfortably tight around her body.
"He's been confirmed as being with Solidus, Dead Cell and Gurlukovich's people. Any idea what he has planned?" Metis asked as she continued to bring up intel on both Big Shell as well as the forces preparing to commandeer it.
"No. Odds are he's just doing another mission for them! The fool doesn't realize that any deal made with them cannot be trusted," she growled out frustrated that her 'talk' with him four years ago at Shadow Moses hadn't had the desired effect.
"Buffy, you know he's only doing it for—" Metis tried to say before a sharp clicking of a clip sliding into place silenced her as it made it clear that the discussion had ended.
"It doesn't matter and from here on out, use only my codename." She said sharply, not wanting to hear her friend for the past twelve years try and justify her brother's actions.
"You go it, Boss." Metis stated with some annoyance at her friend's lack of flexibility when it came to her brother.
"Finish downloading the necessary intel onto your built in memory banks and then join us in the meeting room." Buffy said before sliding the last of her weapons into their holsters and heading for the mentioned room.
She knew she was being a bit harsh with her friend, but now wasn't the time to be debating her brother's somewhat decent motives because, as far as she was concerned, 'the ends justify the means' only justified so much. She wasn't that naïve to think that a mission could be accomplished without dancing on the line between good and evil here and there. The days of her living by a civilian's code of ethics were long gone and she was no longer concerned with looking like a hero to spectators or allies. To her, the mission came first, last and always. After all, the missions she went on personally were either crucial to her personal mission or it was literally a 'she had to fight or EVERYONE died' situation. That was because of her responsibilities as the head of the Slayer's Council as well as commander of the Hunters Unit that led the Council. It was her position and the responsibilities that came with it that kept her off the battlefield. All she could do most times was call the important shots when she had to and deal with the consequences later. That was why she made every field mission she fought in count because, for her, a Slayer and a soldier, it was only in fighting that she truly felt like she was making a difference.
As the doors to the meeting room opened, she laid eyes on the other two members of her Unit. On the right was the man who had been a surrogate father to her and who acted as one of her chief advisors when she couldn't make a decision on her own. You wouldn't know it if you looked at him, but he was actually in his mid-fifties despite the fact that he looked like he'd just hit his mid-thirties. It had been a freak chance that the exposure to the experiment in Brazil had regressed him to such an age and, so far, all of his annual examinations showed no signs of it wearing off or harming him in any way. Still, she couldn't help but worry that her lucky break might have more to do with some scheme of those bastards than Lady Luck cutting them some slack. Still, his on the spot field information often proved invaluable, especially when the enemy managed to jam communications at a critical moment. The fact that he was one helluva sniper didn't hurt either.
Leaning up against the wall on the left was the one person she knew she could count on to complete the mission if something ever happened to her. While she still saw him as just a good friend, Xander had proven his loyalty and his value to the Council so many times she'd pretty much lost count. However, the one thing she'd always be grateful for the most was the trust he had shown her throughout his training. Most people would have called her a sadist and accuse her of orchestrating everything so that he'd give up sooner rather than later. The fact of the matter was that her brother had seen potential in her second in command and had pressed her to help him reach it, no matter the cost. One integrated hyena possession and one night as Jack had turned him into a legendary soldier in his own right.
Not that he's good enough to beat me in C.Q.C, but then I'm the only one he's ever lost to, so definitely not too shabby. She thought as both men laid eyes on her as the door closed behind her.
"So are we a go, Boss lady?" Venator, aka Xander Harris, asked as he pushed off the wall to stand straight up.
"Yes. Willow has confirmed the presence of all the expected players in the city and intel confirms that they're planning to make their move within twenty-four hours." She replied as she moved to the head of table right in front of the plasma screen.
"And you're certain about what is contained within Big Shell?" Agnitio, aka Rupert Giles, asked, living up to his role as advisor by pointing out the biggest issue of the mission.
"Yes. Based on the skills and backgrounds of the people assigned to Big Shell, they could only be planning a massive operation via the internet." She replied, pressing a button on the table that caused the screen behind her to display the most important personnel involved, "Central to their efforts appears to be a cutting edge computer A.I created by this lovely young lady, Emma Emmerich. Her, along with several others, bear out my theory based on what our precogs told us."
"So how is all this going to go down?" Venator asked, looking at the faces displayed as well as each person's bio data.
"Based on the most likely mission objective of Solidus, we expect him and his group to make their move in about twenty-four hours. Three to five hours later, the local P.D and military will likely arrive on the scene. After that, things will start to get interesting." She replied before bringing up images of Dead Cell and Solidus, "Ordinary troops won't stand a chance against these four. They have too big an advantage in both skill and firepower for even elite Navy SEALS to do anything other than provide some entertainment for them."
"So who do you think the Pricks are going to rope in to solve the situation?" Venator asked with some annoyance that saving the day was once again going to be up to them.
"Unknown, but whoever it is will probably be just another puppet. They won't risk a repeat of what happened at Shadow Moses." Buffy replied, remembering the news broadcasts after that event.
"Speaking of David, will he be joining us in this venture?" Agnitio asked, sounding almost hopeful.
"I sent invitations to his usual drop boxes but there've been no replies. Just the same, though, I wouldn't be surprised if we bumped into him during the mission." She replied, sharing Giles' hope that her 'foster brother' would be around to help out.
Seeing the door open to admit Metis, she assumed this meant that the team's electronics and computer specialist had everything she'd need for the mission. While on the surface her expression didn't change, internally she couldn't quite repress a flinch every time she caught sight of Willow's cybernetics. It had been during one of the few missions when things went about as pear shaped as any operation could go that the redheaded Wicca had been injured to the point where amputation had been necessary. Fortunately the resident genius of the Hunter Unit hadn't let a little obstacle like that slow her down and, within two years, had invented cutting edge cybernetic implants that brought her back to one hundred percent and then some. Still, it was something that would always cause a pang of guilt within Buffy, since she had been the one that had planned the entire operation. It had been a slap in the face for her and was the reason why she devoted her every waking moment to making sure that nothing was left to chance when the Hunter Unit went into the field.
"Do you have everything?" She asked, more for the sake of Venator and Agnitio than herself.
"Yep. When we get into The Big Shell, we'll have all the info we need to get what we want and some choice hacking programs I typed up to get past anything that gets in our way." Metis replied as she took her seat at the table, "The Patriots won't know what hit them."
"Good. Once we have the names, you'll need to send them to both the Colonel and Commandant immediately. I promised them that in exchange for their co-operation and obedience that I'd let them be the ones to lead the charge against those bastards." She said, remembering the lengthy argument that she'd had with the two fathers, "As it was, they only caved after I promised to make sure that their daughters made it out in one piece. Plus I owe Reggie for helping out at the last minute with Glorificus."
"So we got the info, we got the people, now tell us the plan, Boss." Venator asked, ready to commit the mission plan to memory and offer his own advice on how to make it better.
"Here's how it'll begin: we'll sneak aboard The Big Shell disguised as an advanced party for the President. Metis can manufacture whatever authorization we need and insert our names into the appropriate databases so we'll come up golden if they decided to verify anything." Buffy explained before pressing another button on the table to display a layout of The Big Shell, "From there, we split up because, as you all know, multiple angles of attack are key to winning any battle."
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&