~**~
-15-
~**~
Unity had Slayer strength and speed. She had the heart of a lion,
and was a spiritual giant. Her intelligence was immeasurable by human
standards. It still took her over an hour to track down Glory. The woman was a
god, after all. She finally found the blonde woman in an abandoned warehouse
not far from her and Ben's apartment.
The god had just dismissed her minions, once again to search for
the elusive Key. She knew she could wait only a little longer before things got
out of control.
"Glory," Unity said without emotion, stepping into her line of
sight. "What have you done with Ben?"
The look of surprise on the god's face was almost comical. "Ben?"
She began to laugh hysterically. "Ben?" Her laughter finally died down, and
anger danced across her features. "First you get in my way when I want the
Slayer, then you come looking for my wimpy brother. Who the hell are you?"
"We are Unity."
Glory was incredulous. "Unity? You're a myth. You don't exist.
There are stories, but Unity hasn't been seen in hundreds of years – more –
even if they are true."
"Ben is your brother?"
"Hello. For a mythical creature, you're a little dense, aren't
you? Yeah – I'm stuck with him. I hope you haven't grown attached to him,
though. We're gonna be leaving as soon as the Slayer gives me my Key."
The Xander Part of Unity spoke up within. *Look at her colors.
What do they look like – or who?* Glory
was wrapped in two strands of blue and white, as well as two of purple and red.
Unity stepped forward. "Ben."
"Do I look like Ben?" the god sneered.
"Yes," Unity insisted, "You do. Ben? I need to talk to you. Ben?"
The blonde woman winced, and her face crumpled – literally. It
folded and twisted, and when it stopped, Ben stood before them.
"Ben," Unity said softly. Then a bit of Xander escaped. "Like the
dress."
He looked down at the blue lycra tank mini and shrugged. "It happens. Yunni? What are you doing here – what am *I* doing here?"
"We followed Glory here. We could see you in her, and we called
you."
The young man looked stunned. "No one's ever been able to see one
of us in the other before. What are you?"
She smiled gently, giving her standard answer. "We are Unity. What
are you?"
"Unity? Really? That would explain a lot." He didn't elaborate,
instead answering her question with another. "What did Glory tell you about
me?"
"Simply that you were her brother. Do you not share memories, even
though you share a body?"
He shook his head no. "We don't really share the body, although in
a way, we do. We are gods." Unity nodded in a "we knew that" sort of way.
"Actually, we are *a* god. Gods aren't as uncommon where we come from as they
seem to be here, although they aren't as strong there as they are here, either.
We were, uh, I was sort of cocky. Planning to take over the place, visions of
glory, all that. That's kind of how she got her name. To teach me a lesson, I
was split into two – the reasonable and rational part that knew the real job of
a god, and the power-hungry part."
"That would be Glory?" Unity asked.
Ben nodded. "We were sent
here because this dimension read as high in the energy that we needed to
survive with our powers intact. Unfortunately, they didn't check on the source
of that energy, which in our dimension comes from a non-sentient form of mold."
Ben stopped for a minute. "No matter how many times I rerun that in my head, it
never sounds any more appealing. Anyway, the source here was human brain
waves." He ran a hand through his hair, thinking about the wording he would
use. "We were sent with a Key, which was entrusted to a group of monks or
something. We had to prove ourselves worthy by finding the Key, and whichever
of us got it first would get to be the aspect that dominated. However, in order
to get the Key, it was necessary that we cooperate, which was where the lesson
was to come in. As long as we could work together to get home, they figured
we'd be able to work together once we got back there." The young man in the
blue dress wandered over to a crate and plopped down on it.
"We're guessing Glory didn't want to cooperate?"
Ben rolled his eyes. "For the first hundred years or so, she was
determined she'd rule this dimension. She wasn't afraid to take the energy she
needed from the human brains, leaving them mad. I refused, and so grew weaker
with time. But soon she discovered that we weren't designed to exist in this
dimension, and because of that the energy she was consuming was tainted, and
causing her to destabilize. I, on the other hand, was growing more human, and
was managing to emerge more often and to handle my life here much better. She
became obsessed with the Key, and tore up heaven and earth to find it. But the
monks hid it well, and even when she thought she had the last of them cornered,
they kept it away from her. Now, though, she's starting to come unglued, and I
have no control over her. I need the Key to hold my form, although I don't
intend to use it to go back, like she does. I'm purely human now – even with the
god energy I'd get from reincorporating with Glory, I have no place there
anymore."
"If you do not share your memories, how do you know her story?"
"You seem to have the brains to be Unity, as well as the physical
beauty," Ben said with admiration. "Glory and I have a love/hate thing going.
She wanted me to know how wonderful she was, and how she was going to win, so
she made sure to keep me up on her doings. She wrote a journal for a long time.
Now she just sends her minions around once in a while to let me know what she's
been up to. She doesn't much care what I do, and I don't much care to tell
her." He looked appraisingly at the redheaded woman. "You know my story now.
What are you? Besides the mythological 'Unity'?"
"Your sister, too, knew of us. Why?"
"You're a legend in the demon dimensions, and ours is closely
associated with many of them. You are said to be powerful, wise, beautiful and
deadly. I've already seen evidence that some of that is true. Tell me your
story."
"You are one person, but two, correct?" Ben nodded. "We are four,
which are one." His expression clearly asked for elaboration. "The Unity is
historically a single entity formed by the merging of four angels, called to do
the most difficult of jobs. The current Parts are the first humans to make up
the Unity, and have made us far stronger, in many ways, than even angels could
have been. We were made for *this* job, although we will continue to exist
beyond it. Because we are from humans, we understand your desire to remain
human, and can judge its sincerity. No angel would be so suited." She hung her
head, seemingly ashamed. "As you are now, you are the one suitable mate for the
Unity, since you are one but many, and we are many in one. But in order to
fulfill our calling, you must be made unsuitable." He moved towards her,
touched by the sorrow on her face.
"If there were a way to do it and not endanger mankind, I'd stay
like this, just for you." Ben lifted her head, and kissed her gently on the
mouth.
She smiled and rallied, given hope not by the kiss, but by a
though inside her. "My Parts, however, have partnered, and will fulfill the
desire to mate. As much as our calling, they give our lives meaning." She
touched Ben's face. "You have chosen well, and are well suited for humanity.
It's a puzzling species, but there is a wonder there, a glory your sister would
never understand, due to its quiet simplicity." She smiled, and something new
stiffened her spine in pride. "I am different, but I am, at my heart, human."
Another voice joined the conversation. "I sees ya finally came
inta yer own, dollface. Yer finally as much Unity as ya are the others. Nice."
Whistler turned and motioned to someone in the shadows. "I was told ya needed
this." Dawn emerged, clutching her chalkboard nervously.
Ben smiled in genuine affection. "Dawn."
Unity went to the girl, and put her hands on the slender
shoulders. "You care for him, don't you?" Dawn nodded. "Are you willing to help
him? I can't promise it won't hurt." Dawn nodded again, a bit less surely. The
redheaded woman turned, placing her arm around the younger girl's waist. "Ben,
I present to you the Key."
Unity could hear her Parts at war inside her. Her Emotions were
screaming that she didn't know Ben enough to trust him. Her Body stiffened at
the sight of her little sister so vulnerable. Her Intellect understood her
desire to help, but wanted more information first. Only her Spirit was at peace
with the choice to offer Dawn to the potential god. Unity had indeed made her
first decision against a majority of her Parts. She hoped she had made the
right one.
Looking up at the young man who could easily be a part of her life
if circumstances were different, Unity realized she had just made her first
truly human mistake. The features of Ben were morphing, and once again, Glory
stood before her. "The Key," Glory hissed. "I could hear the Key mentioned. I
know it's here."
Dawn was cowering behind the Balance Demon, and even Whistler
looked surprised at the new turn of events. "I thought youse couldn't hear
Benny's thoughts," the small man said.
"My goodness, you give tacky a whole new dimension, now don't
you?" Glory said dismissively. "And I can't hear what he thinks, but he'd let
his guard down, and I was on my way back, and I heard something about the Key."
She took the little man more seriously, stalking towards him menacingly. "Do
you have it?" Staring over his shoulder, she noticed Dawn for the first time.
"You again," she sneered. Then her face lit up with understanding. "You, again.
It's you, isn't it?"
Dawn shook her head violently, afraid to speak. She wasn't
completely certain if it was her fear of harming her voice again by screaming,
which her whole body told her it wanted to do, or if it was fear of Glory that
had struck her speechless. It didn't much matter, now, did it? For some reason,
she thought of her favorite cartoon character, and she could hear Johnny Bravo
in her head, complaining that this probably wouldn't end well.
"No!" Unity screamed, flying at the other woman as if rocket-propelled.
Taken by surprise, Glory grunted and went down in the redhead's tackle.
"You little," Glory slugged the attacking entity hard in the jaw,
throwing her back, "Bitch!"
Unity was back on her feet in a heartbeat. "Run!" she tossed over
her shoulder to the demon and the Key behind her.
Never one to ignore good advice, Whistler turned to grab the
teenager and go, but found himself stuck in place. Glory smiled evilly at them.
"Leaving so soon? I don't think so."
Unity could feel the effects of the magical increase in gravity,
but was able to counteract it with her own spells. Unfortunately, it was all
she could do to remain mobile herself, and she couldn't free the others at all.
Even with her own magic acting counter to Glory's, the entity felt as if she
were moving through a room full of molasses, while the god seemed completely
unaffected. The blonde moved like greased lightning, and when she saw the
manicured nails coming for her throat, Unity attempted to duck. Unfortunately,
she wasn't fast enough, and the other woman picked her up by the neck and held
her above the ground like a rag doll.
"You're really starting to piss me off," Glory complained, and
with a flick of her wrist, tossed Unity across the room and into a wall,
leaving cracks in the paint after her impact. The redheaded being's eyes
crossed, and she stood slowly, regaining control gradually as her head stopped
spinning. Thank God for the healing factor that was a part of her makeup.
Focusing on Glory, she saw the god approaching Dawn like a panther slinking
after prey.
"They hid you here, in the Slayer's little sister. Maybe *as* the
Slayer's little sister." A wicked smile graced her face, and she moved fluidly,
having the girl in her grasp before even Unity could move to stop her. The
redhead moved to react, but the blonde stared her down. "I don't know if the
ritual needs her alive or not, or if it'll kill her, but I don't really care
right now. I could as easily kill her now, if you try anything. There's still
the chance I can get the Key out of her corpse." She shrugged, her face a mask
of innocence. "Your choice."
The powerful entity held herself motionless, only her face
betraying the price she was paying to stand still. Tears were pouring down her
cheeks, and she was biting her bottom lip so hard it should have bled. Her
Heart, large to begin with, was now sized to fit three people – Xander, his
bond mate, and Unity herself. It broke enormously as well. When the other woman
began to chant the final ritual, the words that would bring forth the Key, give
her aspect power to rule Ben's, and take her back to the dimension from which
she'd been banished, Unity's pain almost shut down her body.
"I call forth the Key, and its powers to give the one who found it
their claim over the True Form. When the Form is granted, the gateway will
open, and I can return to whence I came, forever to rule as a god in the place
of honor!"
A bright light, so brilliant that even Unity and Whistler closed
their eyes, burst from Dawn's chest, and the girl went limp. Glory dropped the
now useless body to the ground as the light enveloped her entirely. Unity sent
a prayer to the One who had created her for this job, asking forgiveness for
her failure. Then the light faded, and she was shocked at what it revealed.
~**~
Quentin Travers exploded out of the room with the monitor in it.
"Something's going down," he called to Andrea. "Rupert Giles just dissolved
from the magic store, which means they're combining. This could be the bad one
– we need to be prepared to neutralize Unity if needed."
Andrea checked over the kit Quentin had demanded she assemble –
magical artifacts and herbs, medical equipment and several powerful drugs. The
older Watcher had his own kit, filled with hardware and weapons for every possible
job. She still wasn't sure when he had gone from knowing Unity *could* be
swayed to evil to the surety that she *would*, but that seemed to be the
assumption under which he now operated. As team leader, he was the one to call
the shots, but the doctor wondered if she could stop him if he went from what
appeared to be paranoid over the line into homicidal.
"We go to the appointed places. Are your radio batteries fresh?"
Trying not to roll her eyes, Andrea nodded. She felt like a stand-in for Emma Peel
in the Avengers. Thank goodness she didn't have to wear the black catsuit, she
though irrelevantly. "Remember, we lie in wait for the witch or the Watcher,
the other two won't be of any use."
"Shouldn't we verify that Unity's lost control first, Quentin?"
He stared at her blankly, then shook all over. "Of course – that
goes without saying. Now go – radio me if you sight one first."
Dr. Fairhope trudged obediently out the door, assuring that her
glamour was in place first. Her former lover was clearly obsessed, and she only
hoped he was still able to think straight about the powerful being known as
Unity. He'd quizzed her constantly about medical possibilities, and had typed
out the extensive plan they were now following. If Unity began to show her dark
side, they were to immediately corral one of her uncoupled Parts, and find a
way to incapacitate them. As of now, the only way they could do that would be
to kill them, but Andrea still held out hope that there would be another
option, which she was sure she could find if allowed hands on testing. He'd
promised she could give it a shot first. She still doubted that Unity would
wander over that edge, anyway, but Quentin insisted they be ready anytime she
was called.
Her position was outside Rupert Giles' magic store, in a small
coffee shop across the street. She had a sedative, and would be able to swiftly
knock the Watcher out with it and call for Travers if the occasion required.
Quentin was located near the apartment building they shared with the quartet,
since they'd determined that would be the most likely place for the witch to
return after division. She had provided him with the same medicine, but he was
not particularly adept at giving shots to a moving target, so she was concerned
about the drug's usefulness in his hands. Knowing the other Watcher, he
probably had several backup plans already arranged.
There were holes in this plan large enough to fly a Concorde
through, and Andrea knew it. Suppose they all went back to the apartment
together afterward? What if Unity didn't divide today, but went on for a day or
even two? And of course, the chance that she would do nothing wrong in her
combined form still remained, which was the option Andrea was rooting for. But
Travers was in charge, she kept reminding herself. That would be his problem.
So the elderly woman who didn't appear to be Andrea Fairhope
ordered a latte and settled in for a period of watching for a Watcher. It could
be a long afternoon.
~**~
"Ben?" the redheaded entity exclaimed.
The dark-haired man in the blue dress smiled. "Hey, Yunni. Yeah,
it's me. You might want to move for a minute." Even as he spoke, the fabric of
reality began to shimmer and stretch just behind her, and Unity scooted quickly
over to the side. A portal opened, and Ben stepped towards it.
"Are you going back after all?" she asked, sorry to see him change
his mind so swiftly about remaining human. "And why are *you* still here,
anyway?"
A man-shaped being ringed in light stepped to the other side of
the opening, and Ben held up his hand, signaling to Unity to be patient. He
spoke in a strange tongue to the creature, and the head of the other nodded.
The man stretched out his hand in Ben's direction, and the light flashed again,
although far less brilliantly. And then the portal closed.
"Had to lose the dress," Ben explained, coming away in khakis and
a short-sleeved shirt. His casual smile fell away when he saw the crumpled body
of the teenager that lay discarded on the ground. "Dawn!" Unity moved with him,
and the two knelt down on either side of the girl. Ben touched her neck. "She's
still alive, amazingly enough." Looking at the concerned brown eyes across from
him, he noted, "Although she was created by benevolent monks. I don't think
they'd have made her to die simply because she had served her purpose."
The girl's eyes fluttered open. "Ben?" she croaked out. "I thought
I was dead and Glory took over the world."
The young man helped Dawn sit up. "I think we all thought so. Save
your voice."
She shook her head, brown hair cascading around as she did. "It
doesn't hurt anymore. The energy thingy leaving must have healed me." Gazing
into his eyes, she frowned. "Why are you still here?"
Unity grinned, touching the teenager's face affectionately. "I
asked that very same question, and he hasn't answered me."
"I think I got that one, kiddo," Whistler pitched in from the
sidelines, reminding them all he was still there. "The ritual gave the True
Form to the one who found the Key." He looked down at Ben.
The intern smiled. "Thanks to your friend here," he jerked his
thumb towards Whistler, "that was me – by a nose." He reached out and tweaked
Dawn's nose, and she giggled. "Now, how am I going to explain your miraculous
healing to the therapy staff?"
Unity shrugged. "This is Sunnydale. Just tell them it happened and
they'll make up their own explanation." Her face again grew serious. "So what
was the light show? Aren't you going back?"
"Nope," he answered with assurance. "I have a bit of Glory's
fading powers, but they won't last long. All human – completely normal," he
smiled broadly, until Unity spoke.
"Which I really am, but am not. I'm human, but far from normal."
She gazed off at nothing. "I have seen and felt the difficulties my Parts have
had in the way of relationships, and they are much like one another. We
aren't." She looked at him more cheerfully. "I will always remember you fondly,
though."
"After all you've done for me, I could hardly ask for more," Ben
said, smiling bravely. "Thank you."
Dawn tugged at his hand. "I'm human now, I think. All human, just
like you."
His amusement was clear in his voice. "But you are still a
creature as dangerous as any rogue god." His grin widened at her puzzled
expression. "Jail bait," he cracked, and she slugged him on the arm and pouted.
~**~
What a strange day it had been, Willow mused as she strolled down
the street in the warmth of the late afternoon. Good, mostly, but odd. Rupe,
Glory, Ben – all too much for just one day to hold, honestly.
After dividing, the Parts all took off in different directions.
Xander wanted to let Fred know his 'sister' was better again. Buffy took Dawn
home, and Rupe had gone back to the shop to check on things, since he'd left
rather suddenly earlier. They were all to rendezvous at the store in about a
half an hour for dinner. She had decided to go home and change her clothes
before they met. But the day was so lovely, she'd become caught up in the
stroll, and she might not even have the time to change, once she finally
reached the apartment. She might just need to change direction and head right
for the store.
She heard a rustle in the alley as she passed, but the sun was
still out, so she wrote it off as rats, not vampires. But just after she walked
by the opening, she felt a strong hand grab her and pull her back into the
shadows. She began to struggle, feeling certain her enhanced strength due to
her connection with Buffy would save her, but she wasn't prepared for the
impact to her skull. "Ouch," she complained, "That's giving me a headache."
Then whatever it was hit her again, twice, and the now unbearable pain flared,
and then faded into the darkness.
~**~