DISCLAIMER: Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the Copyright Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration.
The End of the Circus: A Tale of the Yizibajohei
Shipgirl Short Stories: Taffy Three Returns: The Reality of Sunnydale!
By Fred Herriot
Based on characters and situations from Mahō Sensei Negima, created by Akamatsu Ken; Katekyō Hitman Reborn, created by Amano Akira; Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, created by Seth Grahame-Smith; Kantai Collection, created by Kadokawa Games; Sister Princess, created by Kimino Sakurako and Tenhiro Naoto; Sweet Valley High, created by Francine Pascal; Harry Potter, created by Joanna K. Rowling; The West Wing, created by Aaron Sorkin; Urusei Yatsura and Ranma 1/2, created by Takahashi Rumiko; The Guns of the South, by Harry Turtledove; normalman, created by Jim Valentino; and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, created by Joss Whedon.
Also including characters and situations from Urusei Yatsura — The Senior Year, created by Mike Smith and Fred Herriot.
Sunnydale High School, the last Friday of October in 2012, lunchtime (Tōkyō time: The last Saturday, an hour before dawn)...
"Still an hour before dawn over there, Admiral Giles."
Hearing that statement from the reborn fifty-fifth of the John C. Butler-class destroyer escorts-now-frigates, the would-be Oxford alumnus who was quite the powerful magical in his own right even if he never went to formal training at either Hogwarts or Meridiana nodded his thanks. "Well, we might have to wait until after school for Hinako and her siblings to come visit us so you can meet Ataru," Rupert Giles mused as he looked through one of his vast collection of mystical tomes which proved to be quite the source of choice information for the Scooby Gang to use in their never-ending battles against Sunnydale's "nightlife".
Brooke Roberts — who had been scanning one of the five volumes of the Books of Ascension while munching on a hoagie she got from the cafeteria before the rush of students poured into the ground floor room to get meals into them before afternoon classes — nodded in understanding. "Around 0900 local time there, sir," the adopted San Franciscan then stated...
...before footfalls made both of them gaze over as a rather unhappy elder Slayer marched into the room. Seeing the frown on the face of the Mighty Maid of the Mountains, Brooke instantly tensed. "Who do I get to kill, Admiral?" she coldly demanded.
Buffy Summers jolted before she chuckled. "No one, Brooke!" the Angelino senior student said as she wagged her finger at the azure-haired reborn frigate. "It was amicable. Scott could tell I was distracted, so we called off the Homecoming date."
Giles took that in, smiling with concern. "I'm sorry to hear that, Buffy. At least Mister Hope didn't turn out like some of the other boys you've dated since you moved into town." As the reborn empathic mountain warrior from old Nesetimtuto laughed while taking her seat beside her new charge, Brooke gave the Watcher a curious look, making the Englishman add, "Mister Hope is gay, Brooke. And yes, that's considered acceptable these days, especially here in California."
A shrug answered him. "Don't care about that, Admiral. A few of my crew had secret relationships since they didn't have girls to go to pillow stations with while out on the high seas. You gotta answer those needs one way or another, sir."
Both Buffy and her Watcher gaped. "Whoa! TMI! TMI!" the former yelped, batting her ears several times.
The native of Camden in London blinked before he moaned. "Dear God! How do you girls LIVE with all that knowledge literally stuffed into your heads like that?!" he wondered as he gave the adopted San Franciscan a pained look.
"I was a warship before the Conservator — is that what you call the Spirit of the Forge these days? — salvaged my hull, sir," Brooke wryly noted before taking a big bite out of her hoagie before turning back to her book.
Buffy blinked. "What's with that book?"
"I asked the Admiral here about ways that jackass Wilkins could have lived all this time since at least before the Depression, ma'am," the reborn member of Taffy Three explained. "This was one of the books he gave me."
A scowl crossed the Mighty Maid's face. "Death cheating...!"
That made Brooke blink. "Why's that such a huge bugbear with folks back on Yiziba these days, Admiral?"
Giles hummed as he stepped down from the library's upper level to join them. "As you'll know, Brooke, Yiziba's planetary environment is so charged with mesonium radiation and particles in the atmosphere that it's quite possible for disembodied spirits to latch onto them to remain effectively 'alive' even on a world as fundamentally dangerous as that one," he said as he sat down, sipping from his tea before continuing, "However, since so many had died during the Dawn of Power — especially during the Starvation Times that followed the collapse of all the national governments on the planet about a decade after the third Healer of Destruction launched the Freedom Parade — many of the 'ghosts' had become SO threatening that special experts had to get involved to start exorcising them to end their sufferings and let them move onto the next life. Seeing that eventually convinced the survivors of that holocaust — both the Named and Nameless — that any form of 'cheating death' was, to quote Buffy here, 'seriously of the bad'." As the Angelino smirked on noting the normally "stuffy tweed" librarian/Watcher was willing to make use of local slang, he sat back in his chair. "Ironically, Special Agent Black's many past selves became quite expert at that."
"Doctor Death, right? Reborn assassin from Yiziba's version of Ratziland..." — saying that made Buffy laugh and Giles smirk — "...who's seen as the nastiest supervillain on the planet right? How'd she become the President's personal hit girl?"
Buffy smirked. "Well, Tariko...huh?!"
Tensing, the elder of the currently living Vampire Slayers rose from her chair, looking towards the door...
...before she grinned with delight. "Uncle Abe! Uncle Jed! Hey, girls!"
"Buffy!" Josiah Bartlet called out as Brooke awked, immediately sensing what this distinguished gentleman with the clear New England accent was, she bolting to her feet and saluting her current commander-in-chief. As the reborn frigate's eyes then went wide on seeing the taller and more sombre figure accompanying Josiah Bartlet to this meeting, she immediately relaxed on noting the presence of the two Secret Service agents now moving to guard the doorway into the library while two reborn destroyers — the adopted San Franciscan was quick to see both had the spiritual auras of Benson-class ships though she couldn't see their hull numbers — in service dress blues with the proper golden aiguillettes making them as current aides-de-camp to the President moving to stand guard outside in the hallway leading towards the side entrance onto the grounds...though much to Brooke's shock, one of them had silver-line red ARMY rank straps for a lieutenant colonel in the Corps of Engineers on her shoulders!
"Hello, Rupert," the former governor of New Hampshire said as he shook Giles hand before giving Brooke a grandfatherly smile. "Welcome home, Commander Roberts," he said as he offered his hand, which the reborn San Franciscan immediately took.
"M-m-Mister P-p-President...!" Brooke sputtered, her cheeks a deep red as her spiritual boilers seemed to redline right there. "Um...th-the Commodore s-s-said that we'd go up to DC to see you sometime tomorrow...!"
"Fortunately, Abraham here was visiting the White House to tell me of the goings-on with the magical native communities; I hardly get ANYTHING from the Department of Magic concerning them given that almost none of them make use of wands!" Bartlet stated as Giles waved both he and Abraham Lincoln to the upper deck so they could relax at the table there. "I'm sorry I couldn't ask Lord Needham to join us so that you could see him as well, Rupert, but he's having some issues with your nominal 'superiors' back in London. He hasn't told me much, but from what he's hinted, it will be quite distressing to Buffy here."
That made the locals tense. "About what?" Buffy demanded as Brooke placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
"It's the Cruciamentum, Rupert," Abraham Lincoln stated, his hazel eyes flashing with a cold fury that Buffy's currently-missing would-be lover Liam O'Connor would recall right away from the Great Chicago Fire in 1871 when the Rail-Splitter ran into the elder members of the Whirlwind — Angelus and his siress Darla (born Julia Kramer) — which nearly unleashed huge breeches in various secrecy pacts that could have allowed all forms of chaos to spread across North America in the post-Civil War period.
The man once known as "Ripper" blinked before he paled, his jaw dropping in horror, then his face flushed with a level of rage that made even Buffy visibly wince. "I take it that is seriously of the bad," the Mighty Maiden wryly mused.
"Of all the BLOODY...!" Giles snarled before he took a deep breath, then yanked off his glasses to start cleaning them with one part of his sweater; it was thin enough due to the mostly-warm weather here in southern California, but he had an image to project to even those consistently blinded by "Sunnydale syndrome", so he stuck to it even if it got uncomfortable.
Bartlet scowled. "Abraham?"
"It's a test for those Slayers who reach their eighteenth birthday, Josiah," the frontier lawyer-turned-nearly immortal vampire hunter — unlike the "demon-possessed" forms of the undead that a Slayer dealt with, the Kentuckian and adopted Illinoisan concentrated on the so-called "daywalkers" like the beast who slew his mother in 1818 — coolly declared. "Since most of Buffy's and Faith's line do not normally outlive their teenage years, the Cruciamentum is meant to prove that there's no sudden 'fluke' towards a Slayer living so long after being called to her 'duty'." Here, the current resident of the Greasy Grass Settlement which was magically hidden from normal view near the shores of Lake Traverse on the Minnesota/South Dakota state line gazed on Buffy. "In effect — as I vividly remember when I watched poor Belle Malone endure this when we and Mollie Bean were in Cincinnati in the early 1880s — a special drug is administered to a Slayer who's past her eighteenth birthday to remove all her special powers, then she is sent off against a vampire to prove she can still perform her task even when powerless."
As Buffy hissed in disgusted shock — no doubt, Bartlet realized, her inbred Yizibajohei revulsion towards any sort of forced removal of metahuman powers provoking said reaction — Giles took a deep breath, obviously hoping to get a chance and let his "ripper" self loose to vent his outrage at this development. "Buffy won't turn eighteen until January in 2014, Mister President! Faith won't reach that age until December of next year! Dear God, what the HELL is Travers thinking?!"
"Whoever comes here to do that to Admiral Summers or Admiral Lehane is a dead man, sir."
Eyes locked on Brooke, who seemed to softly glow with an aura of barely-contained fury. "That will be MY responsibility to see carried out, Commander Roberts," Bartlet then sternly ordered, instantly making the adopted San Franciscan relax.
Buffy blinked. "Margo?! Uncle Jed, that's OVERKILL!"
An icy smile answered her from the former economics professor of Dartmouth University. "Do you think I will stand back and allow an American citizen — No! Excuse me! TWO American citizens! — to be ATTACKED like that?! Especially given how much good said citizens have done since they were both empowered like they were?!" Here, he shook his head as he walked over to a lectern where a large Bible now lay. "The Specialized Warfare Treaty GIVES me the DUTY to do just that! I know you people believe you have to deal with your own fight scenes, Buffy, but this is an attack on people I swore I'd protect!"
"Whoa! If you weren't married, Uncle Jed, I'd marry you just for that!"
Heads turned. "Faith...!" Bartlet moaned as the others of the Scooby Gang — even a calm Hayashi Kanami — stood together as a group on the lower deck level, they having been joined by the two destroyer girls who had stood watch outside the library when the current and former Chief Executives had come to visit their leader, Brenda Laffey and Jenn McLeod Murphy.
Laughter then filled the room...
Minutes later...
After Chloe Zitzewitz had been called from the cafeteria to join her former task unit mate — which instantly got the Sunnydale High gossip network going on hypersonic overdrive when those who had walked the adopted Alaskan over to be with Brenda Roberts had spotted who looked like Josiah Bartlet of all people in said library before they were chased away by two VERY intimidating men in business suits; since state governors also had bodyguards, the presence of the chief executive of California, Gabriel Tillman, could have also been expected since certain shipgirls adopted of the Golden State did serve in the local Naval Militia — the Oaths of Office were administered to them by the current president with his famous predecessor as primary witness and the reborn US Ships Laffey and Murphy taking pictures for eventual release to the general public. Such wouldn't happen right away as certain parties in the city with a Hellmouth would IMMEDIATELY object to the presence of such a high-ranked person — especially since he was escorted by the (in)famous Rail-Splitter of all people as well! — everyone relaxed in the upper level of the library as discussion switched from topic to topic while a special lunch was being prepared elsewhere.
A flash of energy then made people looked towards the closed main doors, which had been enspelled with a notice-me-not charm by Willow Rosenberg to keep the curious away, such then producing a cute-beyond-words mauve-haired metahuman chef from Nagoya, she accompanied by two Japanese shipgirls in their fighting uniforms with the three stripes-and-executive curl of Imperial Navy commanders on their collars. "Ojiisan-tachi! Minna! Hime's here!" Osamu Shirayuki called out.
"Hey, Snow-gal!" Faith Lehane called back as the Great Chef of the West, Syuosekuo ("Küchenchefin"), came up to join them, she escorted by the just-returned Moon Dancer of Autumn, R'bodate ("Akizuki"), and the Shiny Moon of Mid-Summer, Rudate ("Hatsuzuki"). "Hey! You even brought the two Duckies with you, huh?! What A-man said about them is true?!"
Shirayuki sighed before she gave the now-blushing Akiyama Tokina and Motoko — the reborn air defence destroyers Akizuki and Hatsuzuki respectively — a fondly annoyed look, making both adopted natives of Maizuru near Kyōto become even more red. "Hai, Faith-san, they're just like Nii-sama said they would be!" the master trofikinetic declared as she winked knowingly at the Belle of the Wilderness before she wagged a finger at her current bodyguards. "Now, you two are going to eat EVERYTHING Hime gives you when she serves lunch to Ojiisan-tachi and everyone else here, desu no?!" she then ordered.
The pony-tailed Tokina awked while the foxy-haired Motoko waved her hands. "B-b-but Shirayuki-sama...!" the former eeped.
"DAME DESU NO!" Shirayuki snapped. "Hime loved cooking even before she was Gifted to become a better cook! There's no rationing anymore and you're going to EAT properly while you live in Welcome House! Desu no?!"
Both reborn destroyers awked before rapidly nodding their heads, which made Shirayuki smile as she placed the large basket on the table where everyone was sitting at before opening it to draw out covered plates. As both Tokina and Motoko gaped in mind-boggling awe at such a show of largess by the Great Chef of the West, both Bartlet and his famous predecessor were served first, then everyone else came afterwards. While that was being done, Shirayuki then laid out two very large plates for Brooke and Chloe, making them now gape in shock on noting that such contained a very cute cake with candles on same, such pierced in the middle by modified swizzle sticks bearing the oval stadium ring ship's crests of US Ships Gambier Bay and Samuel B. Roberts.
"Um...h-hey, Admiral Osamu, this is a little much, isn't it?!" the adopted San Franciscan then protested...
...before a finger landed on her nose. "Dame desu no, Brooke-san!" Shirayuki declared. "Buffy-san told Hime that you both came here to this silly place on virtually empty stomachs! Hime won't stand for that sort of silly thing!"
A cute eep answered her from the Escort Who Fights Line Warriors. "Y-y-yes, ma'am!"
More laughter echoed from around the table...
Five blocks away at City Hall (the corner of Broadway and First Avenue), that moment...
"Oh, fuck me...!"
"Bob, PLEASE?!"
Hearing that scolding admonishment from his very long-lived metahuman boss, the chief of the Sunnydale Police Department visibly winced before he gazed apologetically at Richard Wilkins. "Sorry, Mister Mayor," Bob Munroe tried not to eep as the much older man — even if he seemed to be only in his early forties physically at this time — before he waved to the television screen set up on one wall of the mayor's private office. "But you better see who's visiting Giles at the school right now, sir!"
Humming, the dark-haired master sorcerer/would be-elder demon rose from his chair, walking over to gaze upon the images; despite what the Scooby Gang had done to the "nightlife" since they came together as a fighting team two years before, none of them really bothered to concern themselves with the plethora of security cameras and other systems set up all over town. Given how incredibly intelligent Willow Rosenberg herself was, that surprised the man who had — as the "first" Richard Wilkins — founded Sunnydale before the turn of the previous century. "Ah, Mister President," the second-generation German-American from Salem in Massachusetts — he had magical relatives on both sides of his family even if he himself would have been seen in those days as a nimmib (he preferred the more polite Canadian term than something disgusting like "squib"), both in America and back among his ancestors' families in Bavaria — trilled out. "Well, given our town's two new very honoured guests..."
"Look who's seated beside the President, Mister Mayor," the balding police chief then advised.
Wilkins blinked before peering intently at the rather thirty-something man seated to Josiah Bartlet's immediate right, then his jaw dropped in obvious surprise. "Abraham Lincoln...!" he breathed out, crossing his arms. "Oh, my..."
"Sir, isn't that a danger?"
Seeing Munroe gaze at him, the older man chuckled as he moved to sit at his desk, reaching over for a remote to kill the feed from Sunnydale High School. "No need to be concerned, Bob," Wilkins noted with his normal genial smile. "Again, that wonderful sense of propriety that adopted Yizibajohei like Miss Summers and her friends follow quite religiously will get in the way here. Besides, how can you NOT admire a man like President Lincoln? Gladly, willingly making himself an effective IMMORTAL on the same scale as Josef von Taserich himself to prosecute a war against daywalker vampires?!"
Hearing that, Munroe blinked before he grimly nodded. Much that there was still a small part of him who violently balked at the idea of aiding a person like Wilkins to become one of the infamous Old Ones themselves — he was one of many in Sunnydale who wasn't affected by the many notice-me-not spells laced over the territory of the city throughout the last century and more, thus knew of practically most of all the dark and nasty things that befell many people living here — the facts of life when one was close to the Hellmouth made those like Munroe develop a brutally practical outlook when it came to staying alive and free in general. Using excuses like gangs overdosing on phencyclidine to explain off all the weird deaths — of which there were many; Sunnydale didn't have a total of twelve cemeteries and forty-three houses of worship serving a population of about forty thousand all told for nothing, after all! — had become quite mandatory given the many secrecy conventions that cloaked a place like this, least of which was the rather annoying International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy. Considering the people who effectively governed America's wand-waving magical population from "the other side of the Hudson", Munroe was more than glad that Wilkins had developed some very nasty anti-magical wards which shielded Sunnydale from the outside world.
"I was a child when the Civil War happened," the immortal mayor breathed out before reaching over to take up a cup of coffee. As Munroe gazed on him, Wilkins added, "Oh, being recently moved over from Bavaria, my parents were Unionists. Being magicals from the old country, we weren't as blind as to the real causes of that war as too many 'no-majs' at that time who lived under the effects of Rappaport's Law were." Here, he chuckled, picking up a baseball to toss it between his hands, acting like any fan of America's favourite pastime would. "Some of my relatives who had magic actually volunteered to help the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the Coloured Troops fight against Sewell's rebels. Now THERE was a nasty piece of work indeed!" he tsked as he thought about the five millennia-old vampire who found a way to use mesonium of all things — ebony mesonium, of course, given its darker effects on one's soul — to allow him to survive exposure to the Sun, not to mention "retain" his soul from being "possessed". Thanks to Buffy Summers and her friends, Wilkins learned the truth about "demon-possessed" types of undead who were the first of their kind to rise on Earth in the wake of the End War twenty-five millennia ago; this was also when a fisherman born Tash Ri from Rügen off the northeast coast of modern-day Germany near the Polish border would become empowered to be Earth's first true immortal being, the infamous Undying Lord himself. "Did you know that Mister Lincoln actually killed that man by tricking him into attacking a train in Maryland believing said train bore silver bullets to deal with Sewell's allies?"
Munroe perked. Working for Wilkins did give the younger man — even if he now looked quite older than his boss — chances to learn some very choice tales about the hidden side of American history over the previous century and more. "No, I didn't."
"It's true," Wilkins affirmed. "The Department of Magic — this was at the time when the Magical Congress didn't blind themselves so much to the EXACT wording of the Magical Constitution as they would after Mister Wilson was elected in 1912 — threw their lot onto the Union side, supporting Mister Lincoln all the way. One of General Lee's own troopers was a magical marshal who disguised herself as a man to fight in III Corps leading up to Gettysburg; Mollie Bean would get the Medal of Honour for that and later accompanied Mister Lincoln on his quite amusing 'score and four' rampage. They'd already teleported up the silver needed to deal with Sewell's people to provision the elements of the 7th Cavalry and those normal troops in the Army of the Potomac who were in on the secret — plus those in Lee's troops who were Unionists like Miss Bean was due to her oaths as a magical marshal — to wipe out all the vampire fighting forces in Pennsylvania at the time. Even more, Mrs. Lincoln dealt with Sewell's own sister Valdoma in the White House herself while her husband was busy dealing with that man."
Munroe nodded. "You think Sewell might still be alive, sir?"
That made the mayor blink. "Why do you ask that, Bob?"
"Horcruxes, sir. My boys yesterday overheard Summers and Lehane complain about what that Potter kid over in England has to deal with because of this Voldemort bast-..." — he caught himself as Wilkins sent him a reproachful look — "...um, character!" he quickly corrected himself. "Splitting the soul, putting the split-off parts into things to hide them away. That's how Voldemort survived Potter's mother putting the guy down on Hallowe'en in '96 according to Summers and Lehane."
The older man shook his head. "Sewell's rumoured to have invented the horcrux process; he was magical before he was turned when he worked for Pharaoh Djer. Came up with the idea to help His Majesty remain immortal." Here, he shook his head. "Doesn't work in the long term unless you get some serious help from the other side of the line...and given what the Rittmeister did during the End War, conservatives in Europe would NEVER do that." The would-be Old One — he was contemplating trying an Ascension on Hallowe'en; if that didn't give him what he wanted, he could wait for the summer solstice when stellar patterns would be perfect — smiled as he put the baseball on his table. "Besides, rumour has it Mister Riddle didn't learn how to properly split his soul apart from Professor Slughorn while he was at Hogwarts, then had to mix in parts of a Korean soul-breaking ritual they call the nŏksbae." At his guest's look, Wilkins translated, "'Soul boat'." At the other man's nod, the sorcerer added, "Which explains Ms. Potter's delightful girlfriend Ms. Peverell. Or 'Lady Slytherin' as she'd be known among British wand magicals."
"Important?"
"She'd be effectively magical royalty there, Bob." Here, Wilkins then sighed. "Have Reginald come see me after school." He then raised a cautioning finger. "Not now, Bob. Since Brenda Laffey was one of the President's escorts..."
"She's just a destroyer, Mister Mayor," Munroe cautioned.
"Personal apprentice to Captain Naomi Haight-Ashbury, Bob," Wilkins warned.
That made the police chief wince. "Oh, HER!" he hissed out. "Right, Mister Mayor! I'll call him!"
"Good man..."
Somewhere hidden in Sunnydale, that moment...
There were days that Balthazar honestly wished he obtained some daywalker vampire minions to help him.
The morbidly obese demon — who didn't consider himself one of the Old Ones; even if he was quite powerful in his own right, he hadn't the abilities to set continents ablaze as those ancient monsters sometimes did in their seventy-millennia long war with the Great Old Ones who were Earth's TRUE first sentients — based himself near the edge of town and those remarkable anti-magical wards his once-mortal opponent Richard Wilkins set up to keep the wand wavers based out of Manhattan these days clear of the Hellmouth. While he did admire the would-be Old One — Ugh! To think that a mere human could become THAT?! Sickening! — for ensuring those nosy busybodies stayed away, the idea that the man still had his precious amulet made the blob-like being want to scream throughout all the dimensions of Existence about how unfair life had been for him over the century.
And while he knew those mesonium-touched metahumans who lived and worked in Sunnydale since the winter of 2004 — when Willow Rosenberg and Alexander Harris had been Gifted thanks to the travelling Tariko Katabarbe to respectively become the Arch-Mage of True Passion and the Wild Scavenger of the Plains — still seemed clueless about the "polite" man...
Sensing THEM in town now...!
Hissing as he recalled the many rumours of what happened to those like him when they tried to invest the World of the Forge to gain control over the mightiest power in all of Existence itself...!
Shipgirls!
A practically divine soul born from the combined memories and dreams of THOUSANDS on average...
...then somehow mated to the bodies forged by the second Healer of Destruction of all people!
Balthazar had nearly gone catatonic when he sensed the living spirit of the USS Enterprise become Yvonne Swanson back in April over in Sweet Valley, a place that was likewise shielded from outside interference as Sunnydale was...!
To confront not just a shipgirl, but one of the very few cosmic shipgirls to come alive this year alone...!
It would be infinitely worse if any of the monster-slaying battleships active during the World Wars — vessels built by Canadian and later Australian and New Zealander magicals to fight creatures (whose origins were still a mystery even to someone like him) who could easily have fought any of the Old Ones on an even footing themselves! — became something like THAT...!
Still, it wasn't all too bad...
Given that Yizibajohei custom of not interfering in other people's battles, the "Scooby Gang" had been effectively alone, isolated from outside help, since the first of the two now-living Slayers — herself Gifted by that accursed world into becoming a very exceptional empathic urban warfare fighter — in the late summer of 2010. Thus, they could be hopefully dealt with.
Even with the arrival of two people in Faith Lehane and Hayashi Kanami — who BOTH were totally invulnerable to ALL forms of attack, especially from psionic, magical or other metaphysical sources — earlier this year didn't really make things impossible for someone like Balthazar or any of his peers should they move to force those annoying kids through their "death scenes".
But now...!
Now...!
There were several of Batae Erba's own creations now on the Hellmouth!
And two of them looked like they were going to LIVE here from now on!
Why?!
Why...?
Snarling, the demon tried to relax in his overlarge bed.
He'd have to wait for sunset in a few hours to get the El Eliminati onto the streets to find out...
In another hidden location in Sunnydale near the airport...
The dark-skinned vampire known these days as "Mister Trick" simply couldn't understand many of his fellow undead these days.
Having been turned during the Roaring Twenties when he lived in Harlem, the veteran of the famous Hellfighters of the 369th Infantry Regiment who kicked ass and took names in the final years of the Great War born Kevin Freeman had been quick to submerge into his "demonic" side early in his undead "life". However, as years passed, Trick came to develop a profound distaste for many of his fellow undead and their adherence to "traditional" ways of doing things when it came to the living. It galled him when an older vampire, Kakistos, contacted Trick a decade ago to help destroy potential Slayers before they were "called" into service. While the Great War veteran could understand culling those girls before they became trouble, the pig-ass ignorance the undead Mycenaean Greek nobleman from what would become Sparta showed when it came to the modern world made Trick want to defect...if he didn't want to wind up TRULY dead for his "betrayal"! Seeing the old warrior put down so easily by a just-Gifted Faith Lehane in Boston in the spring of 2010 — especially given HOW the Belle of the Wilderness did it: KICKING the old fool high enough into orbit to let him be turned ashes by the Sun had been mind boggling to see — was a relief to the undead New Yorker even if he got his ass out of Massachusetts while the-then would-be Slayer began clearing out her home city in vengeance over the loss of her Watcher/adopted mother Rebecca Mulligan. Much to the horror of people like Angelus after he "returned to the dark" on New Year's Day this year, Faith's Gifting awoke many of her Slayer powers as well, guaranteeing the split inheritance provoked by what Xander Harris did in the final fight with the Master and the Order of Aurelius the previous June found a worthy heir to the collected memories of all Slayers who had ever lived from the daughter of Sineya onward after Angelus' "child" Drusilla Keeble killed Kendra Young in mid-May would find a worthy heir in the native of south Boston.
Now if she only did NOT have a Gift making her invulnerable to handy things like magic or psychic attacks...!
...much less had been joined a couple weeks later by the greatest martial arts talent in his/her generation when Hayashi Kanami moved into town after s/he finally ditched her old identity as "Saotome Ranma" back in Japan.
Yeah, this would make things a little TOO exciting even for a man of action like Trick.
Hopefully, his present employer Richard Wilkins would become strong enough on his Ascension — Hallowe'en evening looked promising to the immortal mayor of Sunnydale — to at least drive Lehane and Hayashi off and leave people like him alone.
If what he had heard from the local vampire rumour mill was even HALF true...!
Uh-uh! No thanks! He liked his current undead "life", thank you very much!
Being FORCED to embrace the SUN again...!
Thinking about that as he stood behind the elderly Justin Pitt — who purchased Angel's old mansion on the corner of Union and Market Streets; as to where the once-member of the Whirlwind and his "daughter" and "grandson" vanished to after Faith chased the infamous vampire off, saving Jenny Calendar along the way — while he monitored the movements of his would-be "hunters" while they settled themselves down in a motel near the edge of town, Trick could only smirk. While he — like all vampires, even the daywalkers — really didn't care to be up from his crypt-like "bed" when the Sun was up, he didn't want to miss something like what he had arranged at Wilkins' behalf when he was hired by the immortal sorcerer months before.
"Let the SlayerFest begin..." the undead New Yorker breathed out before patting Pitt's shoulder. "Good luck, Mister Pitt."
The elderly man perked before he chuckled. "Thank you, Mister Trick. I WILL win this, of course!"
The dark-skinned vampire nodded as he patted the older man's shoulder. "Good attitude to have, sir!" he politely declared before nodding as he headed for a nearby stairwell leading to one of the vast network of tunnels that crisscrossed Sunnydale safely away from potential sources of sunlight. Before the man born Liam O'Connor had moved into the city just prior to Buffy Summers' arrival two years before, another vampire — whose name Trick never got — had owned this particular mansion, using it to drill out said tunnels to make hunting for blood for himself and his peers much easier in the long term.
Trick knew he needed to rest up before tonight's fun began...
Off US Highway 101 midway between Sunnydale and Sweet Valley, that moment...
"'SlayerFest '12?!' What the damned fuck is that wanker Trick thinking of?!"
Hearing that demand from Spike, Angelus could only snort as he paced around the basement of the abandoned home his "daughter" and "grandson" had set up for themselves the previous summer as a fall-back base for the younger members of the Whirlwind to use in case things in Sunnydale itself got a little too hot even for the people born Drusilla Keeble and William Pratt. "He's doing some distraction for Wilkins, Spike. Relax! We won't get involved in that," the man born Liam O'Connor breathed out before turning to sip from the cup of blood that he had poured for himself; even if they were all safe from the brutal rays of the Sun in their current place, using blood to help revitalize oneself was a good way for a vampire to stay alert and ready.
Given what happened in February when that bitch Kalderash was saved from the revived One With the Angelic Face who had been one of the terrors of the Whirlwind in the late Nineteenth Century before his "soul" was restored — not to mention what had befallen the Judge of all things not a week later thanks to someone that seemed to be DEATH PERSONIFIED who had blown into town one Saturday evening to help the Scooby Gang, virtually DISINTEGRATING the ancient demon mean to "cleanse" humankind from Earth with just the TOUCH OF HER HANDS! — Angelus wasn't going to do something stupid.
Especially in the face of THEM!
Metahumans...!
They never had people like them back before the Clan Kalderash cursed the undead cloth merchant's son...!
Oh, wait! They did have such people!
They were called "magicals"...!
"We can't let Summers and her friends think they've won, Angelus!" the would-be poet from London snapped.
"We won't!" the older vampire turned just before the start of the Seven Years War vowed as he glared intently at his bleach-blond "grandson". "We just need to find ways to get back into town and into the groove without Buffy and her friends coming down on us like a ton of bricks, Spike! You know things in Sunnydale have gone straight into the weird ever since Lehane came!" Here, he shook his head. "Actually turning vampires BACK into living people?! I don't know what she was thinking...!"
Spike nodded. Since even BEFORE the Kalderash were virtually chased out of Sunnydale by the Scooby Gang when the Belle of the Wilderness came to support them against Angelus — when Buffy Summers threatened to unleash someone called the Archangel of Mortality on the whole clan for "flubbing up the revenge scene"...whatever the hell THAT meant! — vampires had disappeared from the city with noticeable frequency. They weren't slain; whenever the Slayer went to do things — in a costume that gave Angel and Angelus hot dreams whenever they saw her in that skin-tight sleeveless affair that left NOTHING to the imagination! — she knocked them out, then got her friends Rosenberg, Maclay and Harris to vanish the bodies somewhere before they were staked. As to "where", Angelus' timid "other-self" never learned; whenever he asked Buffy, the woman winked at him, reassuring him things were "dealt with" in a way that would ensure such beings would never threaten a normal person again.
What the hell made Angelus' other-self just ACCEPT that?!
Was there some weird "mojo" that Rosenberg and Maclay — both of whom were quite accomplished wandless witches even if they never endured formal schooling — used on him to keep him blind as to what was going on?
Why hadn't his other-self sensed what was happening?
Both as Angel and Angelus, Liam O'Connor had considerable experience with magicals of many stripes...!
"It is wise not to interfere in this manner, dear Father."
Perking on hearing the haunted voice of his effectively Seer of a "daughter", the undead cloth merchant's son looked over. "What do you mean, Dru?" he asked as he came over to gently squeeze her shoulders in support.
"The Sea Angels now look this way, Angelus," the psychically-gifted — even BEFORE she was turned! — vampire said as she reached up to grip his hands warmly. "They are allies with your would-be beloved and her friends...!"
Both men blinked before Spike's eyes went wide. "The bloody shipgirls?! Why?!"
"The Escort Who Fights Line Warriors and the Skittish Jackrabbit claim spiritual blood in this land, Spikey!" Drusilla said as her voice then softened, she looking fondly at the man she herself had sired not nine years prior to the end of the Score and Four. "They accepted the gifts from HIM/HER when they re-birthed themselves off the Isles of Lazarus days ago, seeking vengeance for their crews' slain relatives who fell at the hands of the would-be Old One who is King of Sunnydale...!"
Her voice faded as images slammed into her mind, making her hiss as she grasped her forehead with her hands, leaning forward. Letting go on seeing how much pain she was in, Angelus could only blink before his eyes went wide. "The Mayor...?!"
Spike gaped. "Wilkins?! Get off it, Angelus! That polite bloke's too damned NORMAL from what I saw of him!"
His "grandfather" shook his head. "No! No! You haven't been in this town long enough to explore it, especially the LIBRARY before Giles magically blocked it off to us, Spike!" Angelus said. "I was there as — Ugh! HIM! — a few times, remember?!" Grateful for the younger vampire's understanding look — for a "tweed" fool from the old country, Rupert Giles was quite the nasty bugger when he had to be; one didn't get to be called "Ripper" of all things for nothing after all! — the Irish-born master vampire squeezed his fists. "Isn't it funny that pictures of the old mayors — who have the same damned NAME as the current one! — show the VERY SAME MAN?!" An admiring chuckle escaped him as he shook his head. "Damn! When did he show up over the Hellmouth anyway?! What type of deal did he make with whatever demon he ran into here to save his ass?!"
As Spike nodded while considering that, Angelus walked over to sit down before their computer; vampire he may be, but modern day human conveniences were quite handy. "So let's see who our two 'sea angels' are...?"
"Oh, I'm afraid you won't be able to learn that right now, Master Liam."
That made Angelus balk before he and Spike spun around...
...then both men screamed as reddish energy lashed out from the hands of a certain reborn "Inca mummy girl" who just appeared in their supposedly "secret" base without warning. As Drusilla spun around to look, an elbow slammed into her forehead, knocking her out. "You'll keep, lady!" an accented voice then called out. "Hey, O'Connor! Pratt! We finally found you!"
"Indeed, they couldn't have fled far after Mistress Margo chased them out of town, friend Kanami," Coya Gutierrez coyly stated as she turned her hands, sending probes of energy into the two trapped vampires to make them scream out with considerable pain. "Hurts, doesn't it?" the Volcanic Handmaiden of the Dark Gaol mused as the Untameable One roughly picked up Drusilla to drag her over, dropping her onto the floor by her peer's feet. "Much that I know your turnings were never really your fault, the fact that you've caused my dear Mistress Elizabeth much pain needs to be answered for, Master Liam! And you WILL answer for it in a way the fool Kalderash could NEVER imagine when they 'returned' your 'soul' to you after you killed their relative."
Angelus tried to push himself clear of such a vise-like grip. "How...did you find us...?!" he snarled, letting his game face come on in some vain hope that he could scare the stupid bitch into letting him go so he could kill her.
"Your ki signature, O'Connor," Hayashi Kanami said as she came over...
...then made both Angelus and Spike scream in horror as she elevated herself off the ground. While the dazed Drusilla opened her eyes to see that — which made her shriek in fright before a sweeping kick from April Mears knocked her out anew — the boy-turned-girl who had the honour of being one of TWO men to be listed in the primary index of The Book of Pretty Girls leaned into Angelus' face, said face turning back to normal. "Damn! You really disappoint me, Liam! Big, bad master vampire with nearly THREE CENTURIES of experience...and it didn't ONCE register in your head that Buffy, Wills, Xander and Tara had become METAHUMANS themselves?! Didn't Buffy's battlesuit tell you anything?! You 'lived' during the Second World War, didn't you?! You saw all the shit between all the mystery men active in that time! You should have known...!"
"Mistress Willow enspelled them, Kanami," the reborn Inca princess — who had been forced to consume the Draught of Living Death of all things after she had somehow survived being sacrificed to the god of a VOLCANO of all things in hopes of driving the Spanish out of her ancestral lands in the 1550s — declared, making Angelus shriek and Spike snarl. "Even if he was far more civil at the time, he believed in the 'old' ways of dealing with those like himself, just like Master Rupert's 'friends' do back on the Island of the Angles. He would never approve of what dear Xander proposed after he lost his friend to the Master."
"Yeah, that figures!" Kanami sneered, shaking her now-free flowing red hair. "We got classes to get back to soon. Get these idiots into the Dark Gaol right away, Coya! You're gonna STARVE to the point where the 'demons' inside you will GIVE UP WILLINGLY and let you go before we let you have blood again, O'Connor! Have a nice day!"
Before Angelus could scream out, a warp leading into a place of total blackness then opened...
...and in the blink of the eye, the members of the Whirlwind found themselves teleported nearly three hundred light-years away!
Once the warp to that place in the very heart of the Great Crystal of Power was then closed, Kanami looked over to one side. "Thanks for finding those three, Clover," the physically strongest of the Children of the Forge called out.
A warp appeared, allowing a raven-haired woman in a black diver's skinsuit-like battlesuit to emerge, the hull numbers 277 on her thighs in white. "It was my pleasure, Admiral Hayashi," the Unseen Sea Hunter of the Eastern Coasts, Kanibaka ("Scamp"), having been reborn from the sixty-sixth of the Gato-class fleet submarines as Clover Hollingsworth affirmed with a nod.
"Keep an eye out for friends, please," Coya bade before she summoned a teleportation circle to get her, April and Kanami back to Sunnydale High School. "No doubt, Master Liam turned several of Mistress' peers to act as his spies."
The subgirl who was one of the first salvaged and Gifted back in late April gave then a jaunty salute as they headed off...
To Be Continued...
WRITER'S NOTES
This omake takes place right after the previous one, twenty-one days prior to the start of Boy Meets Girl Meets Metahuman.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer notes: The Books of Ascension were first mentioned in "Enemies" (third season, episode 17). Scott Hope first appeared in "Faith, Hope & Trick" (third season, episode three). The Tento di Cruciamentum was first introduced in "Helpless" (third season, episode twelve). Belle Malone was introduced in promotional clips known collectively as History of the Slayer, aired prior to the series premier in 1996 and 1997 on the WB Network. Quentin Travers also made his first appearance in "Helpless". Bob Munroe first appeared in "School Hard" (second season, episode three). Reginald Snyder first appeared in "The Puppet Show" (first season, episode nine); his given name was created by Barefoot XO for his wonderful one-part BtVS/V for Vendetta story X is for eXecution, which is on the Fanfiction website at entry #11178826 (no doubt inspired by his first initial R). Balthazar first appeared in "Bad Girls" (third season, episode 14); his minions, the El Eliminati, also appeared there. Mister Trick and his late employer Kakistos first appeared in "Faith, Hope & Trick"; Trick's birth name Kevin Freeman and his history is my creation. Rebecca Mulligan is my name for the Watcher originally assigned to Faith Lehane (Wildflower), first mentioned in "Faith, Hope & Trick". Both Drusilla Keeble (family name my invention) and her "son"/lover William "Spike" Pratt first appeared in "School Hard". The immediate successor to Buffy Summers (Virago) as Slayer, Kendra Young, first appeared in the two-part "What's My Line?" (second season, episodes 9-10). Justin Pitt is my name for the "old man" who was a player in SlayerFest '98 (in this story as seen above, SlayerFest '12) in "Homecoming" (third season, episode five); his name is taken from a previous character played by his actor, the late Ian Abercrombie. Jennifer "Jenny" Calendar (AKA Jenna of the Kalderash) first appeared in "I Robot, You Jane" (first season, episode nine). Her overall clan was first mentioned in "Surprise" (second season, episode 13); this story was also when the Judge first appeared.
As an aside, as I freely mix plot elements of Harry Potter, Mahō Sensei Negima and Buffy the Vampire Slayer into my stories, it is not surprising that Richard Wilkins would be the nimmib/squib son of migrants from Bavaria (this was chosen due to his actor Harry Groener having been born in Augsburg west of München [Munich]). See Part Three of Magic and Canada to understand how the universes of Harry Potter and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter interacted during the hidden side of that war. That file also contains information concerning Rappaport's Law and how it affected American and Canadian magicals; the issue with President Woodrow Wilson — known among magicals as the Panic of 1914 — is covered in Part Six. As an aside, Adam Sewell is my name for the chief antagonist in both the AL:VH novel and movie; so named after his actor, Rufus Sewell.
Sweet Valley High character note: Margo Black (Doctor Death) first appeared in The Morning After (novel #95).
The West Wing character note: The term "Lord Needham" referred to by Josiah Bartlet here is more commonly known as Lord John Marbury, who first appeared in the episode of the same name (first season, episode 11). While commonly referred to by his given and family name in TWW, the character identifies himself as Marquess of Needham and Dolby (as well as Earl of Croy and the Baronet of Brycey). Now, such a form of address is incorrect; as he is a marquess of the United Kingdom, the man's proper form of third-person address is "Lord Needham". Atop that, being BOTH a marquess and an earl at the same time doesn't happen among nobles in the United Kingdom. What typically happens is that unless the titles are ceremonially seen as separate peerages, earldoms are subordinate to marquessates. Thus, John Marbury would have been born as the Earl of Croy (located in real life east of Glasgow in Scotland), then be elevated to Marquess of Needham and Dolby (the former locality is in Norfolk on the border with Suffolk; the latter is clearly fictional) on the passing of his father. As to how Marbury became a baronet at the same time, I can't say; that particular civil rank is a noble title though not seen as of the peerage.
Mollie Bean was a real woman who disguised herself as a man to fight for the Confederacy in the Civil War. She was a part of the 47th North Carolina Volunteer Infantry Regiment, which was part of III Corps under the Army of Northern Virginia at the Battle of Gettysburg on 1-3 July 1863. She became a primary character in Harry Turtledove's The Guns of the South, first published in 1992. I fell in love with that portrayal (which is partially fictitious as her real history has little in the way of proper documentation), then took the character and made her a magical. She would appear in my stories in the third Wizard and Avalonians side stories to Phoenix From the Ashes; her history concerning Abraham Lincoln is described in Magic and Canada.
Notes on the shipgirls appearing here, first from America...
Commander Eleanor Barbara Laffey USN (United States Ship Laffey [DD-459])
Lieutenant Colonel Jenn McLeod Murphy USA (also Commander USN) (United States Ship Murphy [DD-603])
Lieutenant Commander Jannine Clover Hollingsworth USN (United States Ship Scamp [SS-277])
Barbara Laffey (USS Laffey) takes after her Azur Lane self. Jenn Murphy (USS Murphy) looks like Brenda's Blue Oath self; such can be seen on Danbooru at entry #4385031. Clover Hollingsworth (USS Scamp) takes after her Kantai Collection self.
Now, as to why Jenn is rated as a lieutenant colonel (short-form here LTC) of the United States Army (USA) is due to her namesake, Colonel/Acting Lieutenant John McLeod Murphy (1827-1871). Having served in the Navy as a midshipman from 1841-1852, Murphy would become the founding colonel of the 15th New York Regiment of Engineers at the start of the Civil War. Restored to Navy service in 1862 as an acting lieutenant, he would serve on gunboats for the following two years until resigning his commission and returning to civilian life. Due to this, Jenn became the first shipgirl to be made an Army officer. Thanks to her namesake's initial Civil War service, she is seen as an officer in the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), whose branch colours are red with white trim as seen on her shoulder strap insignia. Administratively, LTC Jenn McLeod Murphy is seen as a supernumerary officer to Headquarters North Atlantic Division of the USACE, based at Fort Hamilton at the Brooklyn end of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge connecting that borough to Staten Island.
Now from Japan...
Akiyama Tokina-chūsa DNTK (Tennō Heika Gunkan Akizuki [KK-260])
Akiyama Motoko-chūsa DNTK (Tennō Heika Gunkan Hatsuzuki [KK-263])
Both of these girls resemble their KanColle selves, of course, both in looks and behaviour. To explain the whole "Duckies" theme, go to Danbooru and look at posting pool #10990, titled Kantai Collection — Feeding the Ducks, to understand same.
I created the nŏksbae ("soul boat") concept in The Icemaidens and the Philosopher's Stone. Note such is written in han'gŭl as 녻배. The "S" (ㅅ) in the first syllable's character cluster would only be pronounced if followed by a vowel; since the next sound is a slurred "P" (ㅂ) pronounced /b/, the "s" is silent and the previous "K" (ㄱ) slurs to a /g/. Thus, while written in Latin script as nŏksbae, the word is pronounced /nʌɡ'bɛ/ (akin to NAUG-beh). As an aside, Thérèse Peverell first appeared in IM & TPS; the origins of the version of her in the universe of this story is quite similar to that as will be revealed in a future mainline story.