Chapter 38: Rite of Passage

February 2001

Teal'c moved silently through the shattered, desolate terrain. Seemingly from nowhere, a massive Alien Warrior sprang at Teal'c. He calmly dodged the alien's blow and smashed the side of his fist into the alien's face. The alien snarled and attacked again.

Buffy watched from the side and smiled. She had expected Teal'c to find this particular program eventually. Ambassador Worf had gifted the program to Neri after watching her in battle just before he severed ties with the Federation a Klingon War had started. Long after Worf had left DS9, his calisthentics program had still been in use. Neri had found it during one of her first forays into the holosuites.

The alien tried to get an arm around Teal'c's throat. Teal'c slammed an elbow into its midriff and followed up with a lightning punch. The alien, unfazed, caught Teal'c with a blow to his side.

Teal'c dodged an alien blow and jabbed the alient, hitting it in the face knocking it to the ground. He then slowly turned to face Buffy. "Not much of a challenge."

Buffy smiled. "Believe me it gets more difficult. This is the easiest level. Computer, level two."

Suddenly the alien Warrior is back on its feet, joined by two more alien warriers; all three of them brandished razor-edged swords. On a nearby rock materialized two bat'telhs.

Teal'c and Buffy picked up the bat'telhs and the aliens roared and attacked.

Buffy and Teal'c are a blur as their bat'telhs flash and clang against the aliens swords. Moments pass and the aliens drop, unable to withstand the dual onslaught. Buffy smiled as she watched as Teal'c literally sliced in half one of the aliens.

"Well?" Buffy said.

"This is a good weapon," Teal'c said. "It is balanced perfectly."

"I'll replicate you one," Buffy said with a smile.

Two days later on Earth at Frasier's home

Fraiser lit some candles on her daughter Cassandra's birthday cake. "Cassandra!" she shouted. "I'm not imagining it, I mean she was here, was she not?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah! For almost the entire time she was opening her presents."

"Cassie!" Frasier shouted.

"What?" Cassandra said as she walked into the room brushing her hair.

"I thought you were wearing the top that Sam bought you," Frasier said noticing that Cassandra was wearing a top that Buffy had gotten her, a tight fitting, yellow tank.

"Oh! Well, that's like for school," Cassandra said.

"Hey!" Sam said as she cleared her throat and gestured toward the cake. "Make a wish!"

Buffy smiled. "Yeah, I'm dying for some cake."

"Dominic's waiting," Cassandra said.

"Fine! Invite him in," Frasier said. "I'm sure he'd like to have a piece of birthday cake that Sam and Buffy went to all the trouble to bake."

"Replicated," Sam and Buffy whispered to Frasier.

"Bring!" Frasier said.

"I'd love to meet him," Sam said cheerfully.

"So would I," Buffy said. "You said he was a hottie. I want to see this hottie."

"You said I could go," Cassandra said as she looked to Frasier.

Frasier sighed. "Yeah, I did … after."

"We're meeting a bunch of people," Cassandra said.

Frasier walked toward Cassandra. "You know, considering that you have not been feeling well, I think you're just lucky I'm letting you go out at all," she said as she and Cassandra exchanged stares.

"Fine!" Cassandra said pointedly as she turned and left the room.

"You know, Buffy and I could just …" Sam said.

"Yeah," Buffy said in agreement. She remembered what her mom had been like before that fateful Halloween. And now that she herself was a mother of a girl almost Cassandra's age. She knew this was something that Frasier had to work through with Cassandra, alone.

"Uuuhhh …" Frasier said, "she is going to have a piece of birthday cake, you two stay right where you two are." She picked up Cassandra's brush and threw it down; cheerfully. "Coffee?"

"Yes please," Sam and Buffy said with a glance at each other as Frasier walked out of the room.

"I don't envy her," Buffy said.

"Let me guess makes you wish Dawn was younger?" Sam asked.

"Yeah," Buffy said. "But I do love, Dawn. You know I understand now what my mom went through when I was Cassandra's age. And what Janet must be going through. Though you know I just hope that Dawn is better …"

"Better?" Sam asked.

"Willow and I found out what Dawn would have been like via the holosuite program in the original timeline," Buffy said. "When she would have been my sister. Calling her brat would be maybe too harsh of a word. But she was."

"Dawn may not be like that," Sam said. "She knows who she is, and what is inside her. You made sure of that. And she knows that you and Willow do only whats in her best interests."

Just then the lights began to flicker as Frasier returned with three cups of coffee.

"Help!" came a male voice from outside.

Sam, Buffy and Frasier looked at each other and ran outside to find Cassandra lying unconscious on the floor. Fraiser bent down, feeling her forehead.

"What happened?!" Sam asked Dominic, Cassandra's boyfriend.

"Nothing! She just fell," Dominic said.

"She's running a temperature," Frasier said. "What was she doing when she just fell?"

"I … I kissed her," Dominic said.

Buffy smiled. "You kissed her? Must have been …" she said as she noted Sam's look. "You kissed her?"

Dominic nodded. "It's her birthday, all right?" he said, panicked. "Look, I'm telling you! The light just exploded, and she just … passed out! That's what happened!"

"I want to get her to the infirmary," Frasier said.

Buffy nodded. "Sam," she said as she nodded toward Dominic. She then walked into the house closing the door behind her and pulled out her commbadge out of her pocket. "Summers to DS9. Medical Emergency. Prepare to beam four of us straight to the infirmary on my command."

An hour later Cassandra lay on a biobed in the infirmary on DS9 as Joyce ran a tricorder over her.

"Mrs. Summers," Willow said before she spotted Sam. "Hello, Major."

"Willow," Sam said.

"Mrs. Summers," Willow said as she looked back toward Joyce. "Is this …?"

"We don't know, yet, Willow," Joyce said. "Frasier is running tests on hers, Sam's and Buffy's blood work to see if its possible that it could be contagious."

Sam nodded. "Janet thinks there's a causal relationship between the retrovirus and the EM field?"

"EM field?" Willow said.

"Yes," Joyce said. "There is a low level EM field being generated by Cassandra. It's why the porch light exploded. And why we're having trouble scanning her with a tricorder."

Cassandra slowly woke up, groggy. "Mom?"

"I'm here," Frasier said as she walked out of the lab.

"I couldn't finish the harvest," Cassandra said.

Frasier glanced toward Sam, Joyce and Willow. "That's OK."

"I have to go into the forest," Cassandra said.

"It's OK, Cassie," Sam said as Fraiser prepared an injection.

The lights in the infirmary flickered, and Cassandra lost consciousness.

"Dawnara," Willow said. "Have you been monitoring the EM field?"

"I have," Dawnara said. "I have not been able to compensate for it. Nor can I determine how Cassandra is manifesting it."

Later Sam, Teal'c, Buffy, Willow, Joyce Fraiser are in the SCR briefing room having briefed Hammond on Cassandra.

"Do we need to put DS9 under quarantine?" Hammond asked.

Buffy shook her head. "Janet, mom and I don't think it's contagious. Sam, Janet and I show no evidence of the retrovirus in our blood. Of course Sagira could have neutralized it in mine before Janet ran the lab work. But with the fact neither Sam nor Janet have contracted it …"

"Then where did Cassandra contract it?" Hammond asked.

"I'm guessing her home planet," Sam said.

"Cassandra has not been to that planet in several years," Teal'c said.

Joyce nodded. "Retroviruses can exist in the body for years undetected before the symptoms first appear. When it does emerge, it starts to rewrite the individual's DNA in order to replicate. Janet and I've compared this one with every retrovirus on record in both Earth and Federation databases, and it doesn't match any of them."

"So, there's obviously no vaccine," Sam said.

Frasier shook her head. "Joyce and I have been giving Cassandra antiviral medications, but the most recent tests show it's spread to her cerebral spinal fluid. At this moment, we're more concerned about brain damage."

"Since Cassandra is a minor," Buffy said. "Janet gave me permission to take a DNA sample and do a mind scan as a precaution."

"Xander and I just finished going through SG-7's, er, reports from P8X-987 …" Daniel said as he and Xander entered the room.

"In the three months on Cassandra's planet, SG-7 witnessed two instances of high fever and hallucination in teenagers Cassandra's age," Xander said. "The villagers called it the mind fire, we found video footage. Dawnara display on screen the footage from SG-7's mission to Cassandra's planet."

They watched as SG-7 rushed toward a young girl, around Cassandra's age, who was seizing in the grass, obviously in pain.

"Thank you, Dawnara," Daniel said as the video disappeared from the viewscreen. "There's more but you, er, get the idea."

"How did they treat it?" Willow asked.

"SG-7 offered medicine," Xander said, "but the village elders believed that these children were touched by the gods, and that interfering would tempt retribution."

"What happened to them?" Jack asked.

"They were sent alone in the forest near the village," Daniel said as Fraiser looked at Sam, Buffy and Joyce. "And after several days they came back … cured."

"How?" Hammond asked.

"SG-7 tried to find out, but the elders insisted the child had to make the journey alone as some sort of religious rite," Xander said.

Buffy nodded. "Cassandra talked about going into the forest. She could have just been delirious, but it's worth checking out."

"When we were last on P8X-987, the atmosphere had been contaminated by the Goa'uld Nirrti," Teal'c said.

"Well, that…that was four years ago," Sam said. "The toxin could be non persistent. We can send a probe to be sure."

"Sir?" Jack said.

Hammond nodded. "It's worth a try."

"I'm in agreement," Buffy said as her eyes glowed.

Later Buffy, Willow, Xander, Sam and Daniel walked through the forest on Cassandra's homeworld.

"Well, here's something," Daniel said as they looked at a tree with a glowing handprint.

"It looks like this used to be a campsite," Xander said.

"Maybe we should collect some samples of the local vegetation," Sam said. "I mean it's possible there might be a natural cure around here."

"Agreed," Willow and Buffy said.

Daniel put his hand over the handprint and lightly pressed as a fire appeared in the spot that previously had just ashes.

Buffy walked over to where Teal'c stood as a ring transporter was activated and they were beamed to what looked to be a lab.

Buffy tapped her commbadge. "Summers to away team," she said with no response.

"Harris to away team," Xander said as he tapped his commbadge. "Nothing here either."

~Sendara?~ Buffy projected telepathically.

~We're here, Buffy. Where did you go?~ came Willow's thought.

~Apparently in a lab of some sort. Standby. ~ Buffy thought and then she looked to Xander. "Whose lab do you think we're in?"

"Maybe Nirrti's?" Xander suggested. "From what we know this world was kind of her playground. She had to have a lab setup somewhere."

"This could be where the children ended up," Buffy said.

Xander noded as he looked around and picked up a stone plate. "This looks similar to one of our padds. If I am reading this right, the children s suffering from the mind fever wander into the forest, it gets dark, they are drawn to the handprint on the tree, then to the warm fire, and the rings sweep them to this lab. And Nirrti cures them and sends them back none the wiser."

Buffy's eyes glowed as she looked over Xander's shoulder. "You are correct, Xander. This is where she was conducting her experiments in making a Hok'tar."

"We have a problem don't we," Xander said. "She was taken into custody after trying to kill Chronos."

"You are correct. Which means she is in no position to help us," Buffy said. "Assuming of course she would."

Xander touched a control which made the center of the table rise. Inside they found a number of clear crystal rods with different lines on them, resembling a DNA fingerprint. He picked up a crystal from the table. "What is this?" he asked.

"I recognize it but other than that I'm not sure," Buffy said.

On DS9 Frasier and Joyce walked into the infirmary to check on Cassandra and Dawn and found Cassandra gone.

"Dawnara," Frasier said. "Locate Cassandra."

"Cassandra is on the Promenade," Dawnara said.

"Beam us to her," Joyce said as Frasier and Joyce were beamed straight to Cassandra.

"Cassandra?" Joyce asked. "What are you doing?"

"I have to go…" Cassandra said weakly.

"Honey, you're not well enough to go anywhere!" Frasier said as she took Cassandra by the arm.

"I have to go into the forest!" Cassandra said as she pulled her arm away.

"We need you to get back in bed, OK?" Frasier said.

"You're not my mother!" Cassandra said with venom.

"Okaay, then what have I been to you these last few years?" Frasier asked with a look at Joyce.

"You don't understand!" Cassandra said, clearly agitated.

"OK, listen to me … if nothing else, Joyce and I are your doctors, Cassandra, now let's go!" Frasier said ashe took hold of Cassandra's arms again.

"So what?" Cassandra said as she pushed Frasier away.

"We care about what happens to you!" Joyce said.

"Honey, Don't you know what you mean to me?" Frasier added.

"Don't you two get it?" Cassandra said. "It doesn't matter!"

"It's the only thing that matters, please!" Frasier said. "Let us try and help you."

"You two can't!" Cassandra said. "If you both wanna help me, then leave me alone!"

"OK!" Joyce said. "Just hear me out. Let's get you back into bed, and then we'll talk. OK? Buffy, Willow, Sam, Xander and Daniel will be back soon…"

"No!" Cassandra said as she pushed Frasier and Joyce into the wall. "Leave me alone!"

"Cassie!" Frasier called out as Cassie ran toward the turbolift doors.

"Dawnara, beam Cassandra back to the infirmary and raise a level one quarantine shield around her. Do not let her leave," Joyce said as Cassandra was beamed out.

In the Gate Room Sam walked down the ramp toward Hammond.

"Major?" he said.

"Colonel Summers wanted me to report back, sir," Sam said. "She and Captain Harris wanted more time to search the lab they found."

"Let's hope they find something," Hammond said.

"Is she getting worse?" Sam asked concerned.

"You should see for yourself," Hammond said.

"We had to erect a quarantine shield," Frasier said moments later when Sam joined her and Joyce in their office.

"She's still running a fever?" Sam asked.

"It's peaked," Joyce said. "Her bloodwork says otherwise. There's no antibodies. No indication that her body's fighting this, just more retrovirus."

"Does she know what's happening to her?" Sam asked.

Frasier shook her head. "She seems driven to go back to the planet. I don't know if that is instinctual or a side effect of this retrovirus."

"What are we gonna tell them?" Sam said with a sigh.

They walked out into the infirmary as Cassandra looked to Frasier, Joyce and Sam.

"Hey, how are you two feeling?" Frasier asked. "Any better?"

"Why are you keeping me in here?" Cassandra asked.

"We have to," Joyce said. "Your body is generating an EM field."

"If you let me go back to the planet then that won't happen anymore," Cassandra said.

"We don't know that," Joyce said.

"You two don't know anything," Cassandra said. "You two are just keeping me here because you're afraid."

"We found the place where the initiation rite was supposed to happen," Sam said.

"Then let me go there," Cassandra said.

"We think the place in the forest that you've been feeling drawn to leads to a Goa'uld laboratory. One that belonged to Nirrti," Sam said.

"She killed everyone in my village!" Cassandra said.

Sam nodded. "Yeah."

"She also tried to use you to kill all of us," Frasier said.

"We think she was using your initiation ritual to conduct experiments on the children of your planet," Sam said.

"Why?" Cassandra asked.

"We don't know," Sam said.

"It's possible that the retrovirus you're carrying was part of her experiment," Frasier said.

"Wh-What was the experiment?" Cassandra asked.

Joyce shrugged. "All we know so far is that this retrovirus is changing the way your cells generate electrical fields. So, your body is generating heat, and your EEG is showing that your brain activity is increasing—"

"You … don't know why, do you?" Cassandra asked as Frasier, Sam and Joyce exchanged worried glances.

"No," Sam said.

Cassandra sighed. "And now she's gone."

Sam nodded. "Yes, she is."

"So, we won't be able to stop it," Cassandra said.

"We didn't say that," Sam said.

On Cassandra's world Xander pulled out a device and handed it to Willow.

"Evolution."

Daniel, Xander and Willow looked toward Buffy.

"I knew I had seen something similar to the crystal before. But it was not in my own memories that I had seen it, but in Buffy's or rather Neri's," Buffy said. "I think Buffy should tell this …" She bowed her head and when she looked up she sighed. "The Srrkarran people about five thousand years ago were on the very edge of evolving, of ascending."

"Like the Ancients," Daniel said.

"Exactly," Buffy said. "But they weren't ready so they used their science to halt it. Then around the time Neri was born they conducted an experiment aimed at restarting the process. Neri was part of that experiment, she was born specifically to evolve. No one is sure why but she never did evolve. The experiment was believed to be a failure."

"What does this have to do with Cassandra?" Willow asked.

"She is evolving," Buffy said. "She is becoming what Sagira called, Hok'Tar."

On Deep Space Nine Cassandra sat on her bed, staring at the wall as Dawn entered, carrying a chess set.

Dawn put the chess set on a table, and wheeled the table over to Cassandra. And then sat on the bed as Cassandra ignored her. "Hey, Cassie. It's Saturday."

"So?" Cassandra asked.

Dawn smiled as she set up the chess game. "Remember we always place chess on Saturday."

"I know what's happening to me," Cassandra said as she looked towards Dawn.

"What?" Dawn asked confused.

"Dawn, I'm changing … into something," Cassandra said.

"What are you changing into?" Dawn asked.

Cassandra held out her hand, and the knight piece flew into it just as Dawn collapsed.

"Dawn?" Cassandra said. "Dawnara, medical emergency!"

Frasier and Joyce ran into the room and checked Dawn. "What happened, Cassie?" Frasier asked.

"I don't know, she just collapsed," Cassandra said.

"What happened before she collapsed?" Frasier asked.

Cassandra held up the knight piece. "I made this fly into my hand."

"I can confirm that," Dawnara said as she appeared. "I reviewed the security footage from moments before Cassandra Frasier's medical emergency request. The knight chess piece indeed flew into her hand."

"How did you make it happen?" Joyce asked.

"I just…thought it," Cassandra said. "I thought I wanted a knight, and it…flew into my hand."

Joyce frowned as she ran a tricorder over her granddaughter. "Janet look at this."

"That's not possible," Frasier said. "We ruled out it being contagious."

"Well Dawn has it now," Joyce said.

"But why hasn't anyone else contracted it?" Frasier asked.

Later Hammond, Daniel, Joyce, Frasier, Buffy, Jack, Willow and Sam watched on the viewscreen Cassandra's display of power.

"How could she do that?" Hammond asked.

"Magnets. Magnets," Jack said. "Every one of those pieces has got a little tiny magnet at the bottom to…hold it on the board like when you're driving so they don't rattle off…anyway…every one of those magnets has a little electrical field around it. That's how she was able to manipulate it. Magnets."

"Cassandra is manipulating the magnetic field around her," Buffy said.

"I have no idea how she was able to do it physiologically, sir," Frasier said. "This is beyond anything I've ever known medically speaking. According to our medical databases. The only people to ever display power such as this are sitting at this table."

"She means us," Willow said. "Remember Buffy and I are telepathic."

"Still," Joyce said. "What Cassandra is doing is not the same as what Buffy and Willow can do."

"Actually that's not one hundred percent true," Buffy said. "As I explained to Willow, Xander and Daniel. The Srrkarran's were on the verge of evolving, of ascending. Using science they stopped it. About the time Neri was born they tried to restart it, but in Neri it didn't work. No one knows why. It is possible that Cassandra is on the verge, that Nirrti was trying create a host that would in essence be a true god."

"Such an advanced being will represent a powerful host for the Goa'uld," Teal'c said.

"And everyone will have no reason to doubt that Nirrti was a god," Willow said.

"Which explains why Nirrti was performing the experiments," Sam said.

"And it also explains why she exterminated the entire population when we came on the scene," Daniel said. "She didn't want her … experiment exposed."

"Prior to our arrival on P8X-987, and for as long as SG-7 was there, none of the villagers exhibited advanced intelligence or the ability to manipulate EM fields," Frasier said.

"So, Nirrti created the retrovirus in an attempt to engineer her own host?" Sam asked.

"It seems almost inconceivable that anybody could do something like that," Frasier said.

"Well, it never worked. According to all the reports, the children went into the forest sick, and came out well again. If this were some sort of … transformation or evolutionary process, somewhere along the line, it was stopped," Daniel said.

"By Nirrti," Teal'c said.

"Why would she do that though?" Willow asked.

"The retrovirus rewrites DNA," Joyce said. "If the carrier died before they were able to pass on the altered genes to the next generation, evolution couldn't take place. Evolution doesn't take place overnight, despite the Srrkarran attempt to force it. It would take several generations. And each generation would be getting closer to evolving."

"The question is how far along is Cassandra?" Daniel asked. "I mean, what if she really is transforming into…something…else? And what exactly is it doing to Dawn?"

"I can answer that," Dawnara said as she appeared. "Dawn is awake. She is manifesting powers now as well."

"How is that possible though?" Hammond asked. "Dawn isn't even from Cassandra's planet. How could she be exhibiting the same effects. Shoot how could she even get the retrovirus to begin with?"

"I have ran a DNA comparison on blood samples Dr. Summers and Dr. Frasier have taken from Dawn and Cassandra," Dawnara said. "Cassandra is Betazoid."

"What?" Frasier said. "How is that possible? Other than Willow and Dawn herself. Betazoids are fiction."

"The Hankan people are pre-evolution Betazoids. Betazoids did not always have their telepathic powers," Dawnara said. "According to DNA. Cassandra is approximately one generation removed from being full Betazoid. Her children will have the telepathic gifts."

"But she isn't exhibiting any telepathic gift," Willow said.

"Not yet," Dawnara said. "If the retrovirus is allowed to proceed she would eventually be able to use the telepathic gifts."

"I thought that Betazoids didn't have telekinetic gifts," Sam said.

"Traditionally they don't," Willow said. "There was a small subset of Betazoids that had developed the ability to use telekinesis."

"Regardless," Frasier said, "if Cassandra is pre-Betazoid or not. Her fever is still rising. Admittedly more slowly, and she seems to be able to handle it better but Joyce and I can't control it. And it is likely now that Dawn is exhibiting telekinetic powers as well that she too may start showing the same symptoms."

"Let's find the answers … dismissed!" Hammond said.

Later Buffy, Joyce and Fraiser walked in to the infirmary to find Cassandra and Dawn playing chess as the chess pieces seemingly move themselves.

"What are you two doing?" Frasier asked.

"This helps," Dawn said. "We direct the heat in our bodies toward the chess pieces."

"You haven't got a cure, have you?" Cassandra interrupted.

"We might," Buffy said. "But it's all locked up here." She tapped the side of her head.

"It's all right," Dawn said.

Buffy shook her head. "No, it's not, honey. One thing we have to our advantage is the Fedeation database. Utilizing it we should be able to stop whats happening."

"We want this to happen," Cassandra said.

"Don't say that," Frasier whispered.

"It's going to happen anyway," Cassandra said.

Buffy looked at Cassandra and Dawn and smiled. "I have it."

"What?" Joyce and Frasier asked.

"I don't why I didn't think of this before," Buffy said. "It's rewriting their DNA, right. It's genetics. The way the Srrkarran's killed their evolution was by rewriting their DNA to take it out of the picture. We rewrite Cassandra and Dawn's DNA."

Cassandra and Dawn are moved to the cloning lab and placed in cloning tubes.

"How will the cloning tubes help Cassandra and Dawn?" Joyce asked.

"While in the tubes it will allow me to overwrite their corrupted DNA," Buffy said as she moved to a console and pulled up Dawn's DNA. "Now comes the hard part. Thankfully, Dawn was created in these tubes which means her original DNA is on file. And Janet gave me permission to clone Cassandra back when this all started. Dawn's DNA will be the easier of the two as I can rewrite hers to match the original. Cassandra's will be harder. Using the original scan for comparison I can weed out the retrovirus from her DNA."

Hours pass as Willow, Joyce and Frasier paced and watched as Buffy worked. To say what she was doing was easy was far from the truth.

"I am done," Buffy said. "Now the moment of truth." She opened the tubes and both Cassandra and Dawn took a step out.

"Mom?" Cassandra and Dawn said.

"It's okay," Frasier and Willow said as they smiled.

A week later Dawn knocked on the Frasier's front door as Janet opened it.

"Hello, Dawn," Janet said.

"Is Cassie, home?" Dawn asked.

"Yeah, she's in her room," Janet said as Dawn entered and walked up Cassandra's room and knocked on the door.

Cassandra looked up and smiled. ~Hey, Dawnie,~ she telepathically projected.