Another late chapter to yet another bad attack of life. Kathleen's back is getting better, although she's still not 100%. This week she camew down with flu, but just the 'ordinary type' of the virus. No swine flu here! I'm going to try and get more organised so that I can update more often. Thanks for being patient.
They came one by one at first. Wanderers, rogues, the damned, the mad, the diaspora of a rejected race. They came to Sunnydale, because the call had gone out that Glorificus had emerged, because there was a force in the world that needed them at a time when no-one else did. They came to Sunnydale, and in doing so demonstrated that evolution was far more than a question of survival of the fittest, it was also a matter of survival of the smartest. They came to Sunnydale and in doing so they signed their own death warrants.
For Glorificus.
"Hey you."
Xander turned his head to one side. "Hey Buffy."
"What'cha doing up here?"
He looked down at the pages of the letter that he had been holding in his hand for the past few hours. "Doing some reading. Doing some thinking too."
"Ah," said the senior Slayer as she looked at the Jedi Master sympathetically, before sitting down next to him. "Great view up here."
"I love this hill," smiled Xander as they both looked out over Sunnydale. "You can see the whole town. Beautiful view."
They sat there for a long moment in a companionable silence before Buffy spoke again. "So, Giles told me you got a letter from the head stuffy Watcher guy."
Xander pulled a slight face. "He was just the messenger. The guy who wrote the letter died about 700 years ago. Bit strange that."
She smiled slightly. "Welcome to my world. Remember the time when the prophecy said that the Master would kill me?"
"With a horrible vividness," Xander sighed. "Not my favourite memory at all."
"Hey," said Buffy sternly as she nudged him gently with an elbow, "If you hadn't been there, I wouldn't be here right now."
"Good point."
There was another moment of silence. "So, can you tell me what old dead guy said?"
Xander looked at her with a smile. "Did you volunteer to find out?"
"Wills and I did rock scissors paper for the honour of wheedling it out of you. Wills lost."
Xander laughed softly and then reached into the soft leather jacket he was wearing to pull out an old letter that had the remains of a red wax seal on the back of it. He sighed down at it. "He knew me, Buffy. He saw me in a vision 700 years ago. Me. He saw me."
For the first time in... well, ages, Buffy could see that Xander sounded shaken. She smiled sadly. "Like I said, welcome to my world. Sucks to be us, right?"
"Yeah," he sighed. Then he smiled. "You'll need your Giles-glasses to read to read this thing," he muttered as he handed it over.
It was a very old letter, she could tell just by touching it. Old and yet – still readable. She know that the Council had put a preservation spell on it, but she could almost feel the weight of years emanating from it. She turned it over to the broken seal – it had been a cool one, with what looked like a dragon holding a spear or something impressed into it – and carefully opened it.
Oh, it was old, alright. It had been written long before standard spelling had been brought in, so it was hard to read at times, but at least it had been written in English. Very old English, but still some recognisable. All the reading she'd done over the years in the various libraries that Giles had exposed her too had taught her how to translate the things that tended to be written in big dusty books that smelt of dust and oldness. She concentrated and started to read it to herself, turning it into something understandable in her head.
"I, Ieuan ap Geofram, last member of the Order and knight of the Order of the Temple, write this for the young knight I have seen in my vision, who lives many hundreds of leagues to the West in the lands that must be there.
"In the reading of this you must by now know that I am dead. I am entrusting it to a messenger from the Watcher's Council, who has given me his assurance, upon his word of honour, that it will be held until the Watchers know that you exist. I know that that such a time will be many years from now.
"I write this from my camp, at what I know is the end of my life. My men are besieging the enemy. There is a great evil here that must be crushed. It is the evil that destroyed the Order as carelessly as it crushed the Knights of the Temple. It is a man who was once one of us, but who allowed corruption, avarice and jealousy to enter into him. It was he who whispered his poison into the ears of the King, and also into the ears of His Holiness. I must confront this man and I must kill him, although I know that in the doing I will myself die.
"Do not mourn me, because there is a great tide of years that part us. I think that it is right that I die now. With me dies the old Order. It is an Order that was born out of the rape of Jerusalem, out of the blood that was spilled there on the most holy of grounds. My forefathers did terrible things there, although they also met a man who taught them much. His name now is lost to us, he was an old man who claimed he had come many leagues out of the East. He gave the Order knowledge of what might be done by those who had the Power. He said that those who he had learnt from were dead.
"You are of the future. You are the future. You are unsullied by our past. You can make a new start by creating a new Order. I have seen this. I did not understand much of what I saw in my vision, but I know that you have already started down this path.
"You must continue it. You must build an Order that can act as a great and noble force for good. The Power is not something that should be used for evil – it is too powerful for that. And I have seen that there is much that must be done, I sense that there are evils that threaten our world that I do not truly understand. There are forces at work here that go far beyond what I have seen.
"I can provide you with little intelligence – the tide of years is too large and although my vision granted me a glimpse of your visage, it did not show me what will threaten you exactly. But as the last member of the old Order I can provide you with something that might help. When the Knighthood fell its money did not fall into the greedy hands of the King of France. Some has been dispersed, some given to good and old friends of the Order. But much has been placed in the hands of a banking family that we have long trusted – and I have asked the Watcher's Council to make sure that this money is not touched.
"I place this money in your hands. I know as a commander of men how hard it is to raise the money to train such men, to equip them, to have a base to sally forth from. Money makes this much easier. Please accept it. I offer it as a penance from the past.
"My time grows short here and there is much that must be done. I will sleep soon, a sleep that will not end, that will take away the pain that I feel, from my wound and from my grief at the loss of so many of my brothers. I cannot pass my sword on to you, but I can ask you to remember us. We were not perfect, but we started down the road that you have travelled down.
"May good fortune follow you. May the Power protect you. Always do what is right in your heart."
Buffy looked at the letter again and then at the signature that was scrawled beneath the words. "His name was... Ian? Ian ap Geofram?"
"Ieuan. Giles says it's Welsh. Pronounced like 'yi-yan'," said Xander as he stared out at Sunnydale. "Weird how well he saw me. A guy who died 700 years ago. Freaky or what."
Buffy snorted. "Come back to me when you get a prophecy about you that's more than a thousand years old. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt, and the mug." Then she sobered. "What did he leave you?"
"From what I'd guess, a lot of money. Travers told me that there's a lot of interest involved. At least it doesn't come with a fleet – apparently they sold the Templar fleet off along the way. I'm not sure what I'd do with a fleet of late-13th Century ships. Maybe start a re-enactment society or something." He paused. "By the way, ask your mom about her health insurance for her operation. I can pay for that easily."
"Xander-"
"No arguments about this Buffy, or I'll set Giles on you. You should hear the horror in his voice when he and Olivia talk about the dogs breakfast that he calls the US healthcare system. They admit that the British version has its problems, but they say that something is better than nothing. Your mom is a great and amazing woman. She was there for me when my parents were busy rebuilding their lives. The very least I can do is pay for her operation. I mean it."
Buffy paused for a moment and then she nodded, thinking about the worry that had been in Mom's eyes when she talked about the insurance and what was covered – and what was not. "I'll pass that on," she conceded with less reluctance than when she had first considered it.
"Good," said Xander. "In the meantime... I need to think about what to do. My uncle left me his place in the desert in his will. That might be a good place to start. I need somewhere to train Jedi. I love Sunnydale, but there might be too many distractions here for training. I have to do this right, Buffy. I need to build a place where I can train Daniel and Rebecca – and the ones who are going to come after them."
"The others?" asked Buffy, slightly startled.
"The others. I can tell that they're out there. I've found four others like me so far – who knows how many others there are? They're out there, Buffy. I can feel it. So, I need a place to train, to gather, to organise them."
She nodded slowly. She could see the logic in his thinking. "Where?"
"I was thinking my Uncle's place, turning it into a permanent base. It's not too far away, so I can take people there for training and bring them back quickly in case something happens. It's far enough away thought that nothing's going to be able to easily come after us." He paused. "Ok, the last time I was there I met a pair of evil demons, two vampires and a prisoner – Doyle – but you know what I'm driving at."
"Yeah, I do." She nodded slowly. "When are you going to get it set up?"
"As soon as I can, once I know how money I have to available. It'll take a while to get it outfitted properly and I'll have to build some things to help with the training, but it'll be a project." He looked at her and smiled. "Buffy, that's in the future. And right now I'm trying to work out what to do about Glory before anything else."
"Speaking about her, I think we need to warn people about how dangerous she is. If I'd met her first I'd probably have majorly underestimated her. Might not have turned out too good for me."
"You'd have fought her off Buff. You're the best fighter I know." He grinned. "I'm the thinking Jedi with a lightsabre and an ability to plan. As Qui-Gon Jinn once said, we're defenders of the peace first. Although on a Hellmouth that tends to be a bit easier said than done."
"So.... what are you thinking right now?"
"That we need more options than we have right now. And that I might have to call in a favour or two."
"Grantson?"
"Guy's a walking tank who can't walk and talk at the same time."
"Sir, I think that's more than a little harsh. He's been on the back-up list for SG-13 for the past three months."
"Carter, SG-13 has much bad luck as its number suggests. No. Not Grantson. Who's next on the list?"
"Um, Fintlewoodlewix?"
"No, I don't want to die of old age before I get to the end of his name when I'm giving orders in a firefight. Plus he's too inflexible when it comes to tactics. We need people who can think up plans A to G at the drop of a hat."
"Gerard?"
"She's too much of a tech."
"And the problem with that would be...?"
"We have you."
"Sir, even I need help sometimes."
"Oh come on Carter, I've seen you dismantle a bomb with a penknife and a piece of string."
"I don't ever recall using string sir."
"You know what I mean. Next?"
"Wanamaker?"
"He needs more experience. Plus he lacks a certain Je n'est sais quois."
"Mitchell?"
"Umph."
"Sir?"
"Part of me says yes, part of me says no."
"He's an excellent pilot sir, and he has superb marks in tactical appreciation."
"That's just the problem. The guy needs his own team, he's too good to be shoe-horned into SG-1 for the short term. Once Daniel gets back from Jedi Boot Camp Mitchell could be out back on the reserve list before Spacemonkey could shake the dust off his boots. He deserves better than that. Plus he's not a linguist."
"Many of the other SG teams don't have linguists on them sir, and they tend to do quite well."
"I know, and I appreciate the fact that we've been relatively spoiled when it comes to the abilities on offer. Daniel digs stuff up and stops the locals from putting our heads on spikes, you make sure that we understand what the hell is going on and how the things that Daniel occasionally unearths actually work, Teal'c is a hell of a fighter and gives us excellent intelligence about what the snakes think about certain worlds and I provide witty repartee, devilish good lucks and the ability to bulls-eye whomp rats in T-16s."
"Sir, have you been watching Star Wars again with Teal'c?"
"I may have, not that that's relevant right now. Ok, other than Mitchell who else is on the list?"
"Fassbender. And that's it."
"Fassbender's very good at organising things. I can just see him picking up shell casings after a firefight and complaining about the mess. Plus SG-9 has flagged him up for their next vacant slot."
"So it's Mitchell then. Sir, General Hammond told me the other day that he's got the go-ahead to create another five SG teams. When Daniel comes back then Mitchell can be bumped to the head of the line for one of those."
"Hell Carter, why didn't you tell me that in the first place? Ok, Mitchell it is."
Riley moved down the path carefully, trying to be as quiet as he could. He was not in a good mood at all. In fact he was in a positively filthy mood. The cause of this mood was at that moment following him.
Brigadier-General Lam was decked out in fatigues and was holding the latest electrostun gun in his hands. He was showing all the signs of being very proficient in its use, as well as in advanced field craft. The guy was almost as quiet as Riley and the rest of his team. This was all very nice and it showed that there was a reduced chance of him blundering about like a drunken elephant and called down a nest of HSTs onto them, but it didn't change the fact that the man had absolutely no right being out there with them. The head of the Initiative should have been behind his desk dealing with the day-to-day minutiae of running a military base that studied a highly sensitive subject like HSTs that the general public was (mostly) unaware of. He should not be out and about with the troops on the line. Generals who leapt into the front line tended to lose sight of the big picture.
Riley suppressed a scowl. Lam had told him that he was just getting a feel for what the different Initiative teams went through in their nightly battles against HSTs. The problem was that Lam had been out five times this week alone with different teams, so either he was a very slow learner or he was looking at things via a hidden agenda. Riley was starting to suspect that it was the latter. The problem was that other than suicidal tendencies he couldn't for the life of him think what such an agenda might be.
He slowed slightly as he caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye in the night-vision goggles. Something was walking in the bushes to one side, and he held up a clenched fist, bringing them all to a halt. Then he flipped a switch on the goggles, turning them to infra-red. Yup, whatever it was its body heat was at air temperature, so the chances were that it was a vampire.
He flipped the goggles back and then turned back to the waiting patrol, before holding up a single finger and then bringing his first two fingers, parted, up to his mouth in the usual gesture for a vampire. Then he gestured for Lam to follow him whilst Graham and Forrest were to flank it to the right. This was going to be very one-sided. Tough, as Giles said. Good, this would be quick so that they could then head back to the base, dump Lam and attend the meeting that Buffy and Xander had called about the new creature in town, Glory. From what he'd heard so far he had a nasty feeling that something was very wrong.
In the meantime they had to take out a vampire.
"Hey Jacob," said Jack as he ambled into the briefing room with a folder under his arm and his hands in the pockets. The Tok'Ra was leaning against the window, looking down at the Stargate with a slight frown on his face.
"Oh, hi Jack," Jacob replied, looking up.
"Something on your mind? You look all pensive there."
The former Air Force General smiled slightly. "Just thinking about a few things. Life's been a bit weird recently."
"That sounds like my entire year, Jacob. My entire year. It started off odd, veered into whacky and then became deeply strange."
"Yeah, Sam told me. Well, she told me, I didn't believe her at all, she told me again and then I went to George and he told me that what she said was really the truth. I've been discussing things with Selmak but he's having trouble believing it as well. Demons and vampires are one thing – there are tales of creatures that weren't human and even the Tok'Ra agreed with the Goa'uld that vampires – or Mar'tyun as the Jaffa call them – were an menace and had to be destroyed, but Jedi? Lightsabres? The Force?"
"It's a lot to take in," Jack admitted. "And at least we have a bit of a run-up to getting the intel on what was going on dumped on us. The Jedi bit came with a lot of proof, plus a Frankenstein's monster that was trying to take over a black ops base. That was a night I'll long remember. Nastiest fight I've been in for a long time. But I got my brain around it. Eventually." He scratched the back of his neck. "And now Daniel's off learning to be one. Freaky stuff strikes again."
Jacob smiled thinly. "I'll bet. I've seen that new ship that your people have built. If that didn't ram the whole thing home then I don't know what will. That's a nice ship, Jack. Sleek and... nothing like anything that anyone on Earth, or anyone else I think of, could come up with. That thing can knock the socks off a Deathglider and then go after a Ha'Tak, with the right ammo of course."
"Yeah, well, your daughter's working on a new design for something like a photon torpedo or something." He looked around. "By the way where is she?"
Jacob smiled and then nodded at the door, forcing Jack to turn his head just in time to see Sam Carter wander into the room, her nose in a folder. "Hey Sam."
"Oh, hi Dad! Hello sir."
"Carter. Or rather, Carter junior. Major Carter. Whatever. Where's Teal'c?"
"On the way I think. I heard that he had to return something to Janet."
"What would he have to return to the Doc?"
"She's working on a Jaffa-related project I think." She looked at her father quizzically. "Dad, are you ok? You look... distracted."
"You'll hear about what's got the Tok'Ra distracted, as you put it, at the briefing. Short version is that something's going on at the edge of Goa'uld space. Someone's out there and they're on the verge of kicking up a ruckus. It's got the Goa'uld with their collective knickers in a twist, not that they'll admit that to each other."
Jack opened his mouth and then closed it again. "Do Goa'uld even have knickers?"
"I have to stop walking into rooms in the middle of your conversations Jack," said General Hammond from the doorway.
"Sorry we're late," sighed Riley as he led his team into the room. "We bumped into a Sarang-Toch demon five minutes after we took down a vampire, and you know how hard they are to take down. I ended up having to zap him in the crotch. Twice."
There was a short pause whilst all the men in the room winced collectively.
"So what's the situation?" asked Forrest as he sat down with a sigh. "Please tell me that we don't have to run about a lot. My feet are killing me."
"Yes, and this is cutting into valuable personal time," broke in Anya. "I had scheduled at least several bouts of orgasms for tonight and I... shouldn't have said that out loud should I? I must exercise my new-found powers of tact. I've been practicing them. I can converse with clergymen these days."
"Yes, honey, under controlled conditions," muttered Jonathan.
"No, ah, no running about," muttered Giles as he walked up to the shrouded blackboard. "This is more on the lines of an intelligence briefing for all of you. We've come up against something that we, ah, don't really know how to deal with just yet."
The three Initiative agents all straightened up abruptly. "What is it?"
Giles issued a sigh of his own and then pulled the shroud off the blackboard. On it was pinned three hand-drawn pictures of Glory. Xander looked at them quizzically. He'd had no idea that he could draw like that until he'd picked up a pencil and started earlier on. Perhaps it was a by-product of Obi-Wan's memories. If it was, it was a quirky one to think about.
"It's... a hot babe," said Graham uncertainly. "Or is it?"
"Her name is Glory," said Xander as he walked up to the blackboard and crossed his arms. "Don't let the package fool you. She looks like an air-headed girl. She talks like a crazy person at times and she's not human at all – not by a long shot. According to the Watcher's Council she's a god."
"A god?" asked Riley incredulously. "Are you sure about that?"
"Deadly," replied Xander. "I met her two nights ago. A warehouse was dropped on her head. She survived it. Oh and my lightsabre bounced off her."
A stunned silence enveloped the room.
"It what?" asked Jonathan after a long moment, a split second ahead of Riley.
"It bounced off."
"Is that even possible?" asked Graham.
"If she's a being from another dimension who could be classified as having the titular powers of a god, then that's very possible," replied Giles grimly. "Some creatures have been known to have powers and physical abilities that allow them to do things that might otherwise be seen as impossible."
"As a result, until we know more about her, we would recommend that if you see her, you avoid contact," Xander said. "I can't stress this enough – she's on a different level to anything we've seen so far in Sunnydale. If my lightsabre couldn't hurt her, then ordinary swords, bullets, taser shots or anything other weapon won't hurt her either. We have some intelligence from the Watcher's Council – apparently she was exiled from her home dimension with a lot of her normal powers stripped from her, which is a good thing, and apparently she was bound into the body of a mortal shell. A mortal person, I should say. Somehow she's found a way of breaking out of that shell."
"Do we know why she's here?" asked Riley with a frown.
"Yes, but that information is... well, somewhat unbelievable," said Giles, looking deeply uneasy.
"She's here looking something called the Key," Xander said, as he exchanged a troubled look with Buffy, who nodded her head fractionally. "The Key was guarded by a reclusive group of monks in Czechoslovakia for many centuries. It seems to have been a form of energy that is capable of unlocking the barriers between dimensions, allowing passage between them."
"You seem to be using the past tense a great deal," Anya pointed out. "Why is that?"
"Because a number of months ago the monks were attacked by Glory, who sees the Key as her ticket home," replied Xander grimly. "They had enough time to cast a spell on the Key that turned it into a human and then they sent it here. One monk was also sent to warn us about what was coming. The rest of them were torn limb from limb by Glory."
"The Key's human?" asked Forrest with a frown. "They created a human with it? Do we know who?"
"It's... it's Dawn. My little sister," sighed Buffy.
There was a pause whilst everyone absorbed this news.
"What???" asked Riley incredulously. "Wait, are you saying that Dawn has the key inside her or something?"
"No," said Buffy patiently, "I'm saying that Dawn is the Key. They before the se monks cast their spell I was an only child, I never had a sister."
"But..." spluttered Riley, "I have memories of her! Hell, she sold girl scout cookies outside my dorm when I was first posted here, and that was more than a year and a half ago! That's nuts!"
"Riley, very, um, very powerful magic was involved here," Giles said as he broke in. "Magic strong enough to implant very plausible memories in all of us who know Buffy, in fact all of the world. Dawn has a birth certificate, and school records that literally did not exist until that spell was cast."
"So... how do you know all this then?"
Giles and Buffy turned to Xander, who smiled sadly. "Oz, Lindsey and I were using the Force in different ways when the spell was cast. We felt the moment when the memories entered our minds, and believe me that was a freaky moment. We had to be sure that what we had felt was real and that, well, Dawn wasn't a threat, but we did. We worked it all out and then we found a way of telling Buffy and Giles, just after Buffy had a Slayer Dream that is. It's all been something of a mess, but there was no easy way of sorting this thing out. So now you all know. And I'd like to stress that Dawn does not know. As far as she's concerned she's a normal teenager, albeit the sister of the senior Slayer. Telling her that she's really a big glowing ball of energy would not be a good thing at all."
Judging by the expressions of stunned astonishment that were all over many of the people in the room, they were having a hard time getting their heads around things, which did not really come as a surprise.
"So... what now?" asked Forrest after a moment.
"You need to tell the Initiative to avoid Glory," replied Xander firmly. "We can arrange for Buffy or Giles to deliver a briefing if you like, but your people – hell, everyone! – need to stay away from her. As well as being damn near invulnerable she also seems to be able to suck the sanity out of people – I found a security guard outside the warehouse where I encountered her who had been turned into a raving lunatic. We don't know why she did it, but until we do that's just one more reason to avoid her."
"Oh this is just peachy," groaned Forrest as he covered his eyes with his right hand. "Just when I think that life on the Hellmouth is getting less freaky, this gets dropped on us. What next?"
Xander winced. "That's not a good thing to say around here," he pointed out. "It's a short step from freaky to really freaky." Then he paused. "We do have some options, I'd like to point out though. We'll find a way to deal with Glory – that I can assure you."
When Buffy woke up the sun was shining straight onto the shelf by the door. She looked at it for a moment and then smiled drowsily. That meant that it was close to about 10 o'clock in the morning, but as it was Saturday that was ok. She stretched carefully. After the briefing she'd needed to take some frustrations out, so she went out patrolling until about 2am the previous night, before going back home. Home home that is – her old room. Someone had to take care of Dawn, even if there had been a lot of pouting from her little sister at the very thought that she wasn't too old to take care of herself.
Her little sister... it was still odd at times, getting used to that concept. She had so many memories, like the time that Dawn had decided to 'borrow' her Princess Barbie for a game of Fighting Barbies against her Sailing Barbie. Princess Barbie had taken significant collateral damage. She'd been annoyed with Dawn for a week... or so her magically-altered memories told her. The memories that were lies, or were a sort of lie that had been created by a group of monks who were desperate to place Dawn – or The Key – somewhere safe. Somewhere where a family could keep her safe and close and... loved. Maybe that last part had been an accident.
She sighed and then closed her eyes for a moment. Well, Mom loved her without knowing what she really was.
Buffy paused again and then let out a deep, almost shuddering, breath of air. Mom was ok. The operation had been a success, the growth was gone, Mom should – no, was going to - be ok. She could relax... hah, as much as she was able to, with a mad slinky-dress-clad hell goddess running about town looking for Dawn. That was something that they had to take care of, and soon, because-
Buffy paused and then sniffed the air. Something smelt wrong, as if...
The bedclothes went one way and Buffy went the other as she grabbed a robe and then pulled it on as she dashed out of her room and into the hall. Nothing. She looked around wildly and then hurtled downstairs. Nothing in the living room, but the smell was stronger to one side – the kitchen.
Buffy ran up to the door and then paused with a wrenching effort of self-control to feel the door handle. It was cool. She sighed with relief and then opened the door quickly, to reveal a vision of pure, unadulterated (whatever that word meant, she'd been hanging out with Giles for far too long) hell.
The kitchen looked... trashed. The sink was full of dishes – bowls, spoons, forks, spatulas, all covered in white flour and goop. The sideboard looked like a bag of flour had exploded all over it, and the floor and the side of the wall. The rubbish bin looked as if it was about to burst from the strain of its contents, which seemed to contain something that was steaming slightly.
"Hi, Buffy!" said Dawn with a smile that looked more than a bit strained. "Um, I've been cooking. A cake. For Mom!"
"Oh. My. God." Buffy said slowly. There seemed to be a mass of something foaming in the sink and she looked at it carefully in case it needed slaying. Nope, it just looked... very foamy. "Oh my god," she repeated. "What did you do??"
"I've been cooking!" replied Dawn with a frown. "Duh, didn't you hear me before?"
"Cooking?" said Buffy querulously. "Cooking? This isn't cooking, it looks like the monkeys from Jumanji just had a sleepover here!"
Dawn's frown turned into a scowl, as she stalked over to the oven, peered through the glass and then clapped her hands delightedly. "It's done! And it hasn't gone wrong." Grabbing some oven gloves she opened the door and then reached in to pull something on a baking tray out. "Tah-dah!" she squealed delightedly as she turned.
It was a cake. In a cake tin. Ok, so the cake tin had what seemed to be something black stuck to one side, and there were black fragments on the surface of the tray, but there was a cake there.
Pursing her lips Buffy looked at the cake and then looked around at the general devastation. "I'm guessing that that's not your first try at baking that cake."
Dawn deflated slightly. "I've seen Mom cook before," she mumbled defiantly. "I just... didn't take many notes."
"You... didn't follow Mom's recipe book?" Buffy asked in something close to horror.
"It looked easy when she did it!"
"That's because she'd followed the recipe so many times that she could do it in her sleep!" Buffy snapped back. "And what's in the sink?"
"Oh. That's yeast."
She boggled at that and then walked over to look at it. "Yeast does that? How much did you use? And... hold on. Cake doesn't need yeast. Bread does."
Her sister looked a bit hunted at this point. "Ok, so I might have got the recipes a bit muddled up. And I might have used all Mom's dried yeast... but – cake!"
"Yes, cake," replied Buffy dryly as she walked over to the waste bin and trod carefully on the pedal that opened the lid. Then she looked in cautiously. Three objects were in there in descending order. The first looked like a discus that had taken a quick trip through a furnace. The best thing that could be said about it was that it was round. The second object looked a cross between a cake and something produced by a glass blower with the hiccups. The last object seemed to have exploded violently. "Urgh," muttered Buffy as she retreated from the bin and then turned to look at Dawn, who looked a bit sheepish.
"The last one was ok," Dawn pointed out with a touch of defiance.
Buffy sighed and looked at it. Dawn had a point, it had turned out ok. A little lop-sided, but nothing too bad. Then she looked around at the general devastation. "Ok, here's the deal. I'll help you decorate it with frosting and you help me with the clean-up. And Mom never, ever hears about this."
Dawn looked at her with various emotions warring on her face. Eventually she settled on uneasy suspicion. "Buffy, why are you being so nice to me?"
"Because if Mom finds out that you cooked using her cooking stuff, including her best marble mixing bowl, we are both dead meat."
Guilty horror was the next expression to steal over Dawn's face. "Oops," she said eventually. "I used up all the plastic ones and I needed another one and I... oops."
"Yeah, oops. You put the cake on a cooling rack and I'll call Willow. She's Miss Tidy, so all we have to do is show this to her, we wait for her to stop babbling with horror and then we listen to the orders she'll bark out." Buffy shook her head as she walked over to the phone and then paused to blow flour off it. Well, at least the house hadn't burnt down. Touch wood.