Author's Note: I'm glad that everyone is enjoying everything so far. I know I promised a BIG fight scene and plenty of special effects, but I just really didn't have the strength, nor the time that I've given myself. But I set up a few more surprises in this chapter, and warning, there's only one more chapter to go before I move this to the sequel, Ripper Giles: the War god. I won't be doing a sequel for every single god that is going to return, but because of so much backwash, I've decided to space this whole adventure out so more people can get at them. Enjoy!!
Chapter Eleven
About one second before the two titanic power leapt at each other, Joshua quickly linked telepathically to his sister. 'Are you sure about this? I mean you've already seen Spike's face when he saw you, and I just had my fun with him, so I'm just asking, are you sure about this?'
Mentally, Buffy let out an exasperated sigh. 'Yeah I'm sure. I was serious about showing off my godly powers to Will and the rest of them. Besides, its worth the special effects value alone.' She answered him.
'Good point,' he responded. A moment later, 'Ready, set…aaaannnd…GO!!'
At that they both leaped into the air at each other, flying at an uncanny speed. As they met midair, both blade and stake clashed and was followed by an intensity of light so great that even the gods themselves had to blink. As the smoke and light cleared, and after the spots had disappeared from everybody's vision, the audience could see the two still standing, but now, where the other had been. Buffy suddenly smiled, and at the same time, Joshua casually spun his sword on his wrist.
Once again, as though from an unseen signal, the two began to run towards each other, this time staying on the ground. As they collided, blade and stake once again met to clash in a struggling force of wills. As they held their ground and continued to push against the other, they group watching began to notice something. The two angels were glowing! Buffy was a pulsing and brightening pure pink color, while Joshua's seemed to also pulse, but with an aura of white backed with a glow of shimmering gold.
After maybe a minute of this, the auras around the two beings almost blindingly bright now, Buffy grimaced and decided that she wanted to change the action around a little. Taking a sudden step back, thereby tipping Joshua forward and forcing him off balance, she then brought the same leg sharply forward into his gut. Yet with enough force that the Archangel was thrown back nearly ten feet. Groaning slightly, he immediately stood up upon landing.
"Had enough yet?" Buffy asked humorously standing with her hands on her hips.
The brown haired angel just shrugged his shoulders, smiled, and leaped the distance between them in a second. Buffy barely had the time to register the move and counter it with her stake. At this close range, the two began to flow into something more similar to a sword fight rather than the power struggle that it had been up till now. Despite being shorter, and looking to be made out of a weaker material, Buffy's stake was proving more than adequate against the taller opponent's short sword (Nearly three and a half feet long).
Buffy was trying everything that the Slayer part of her knew in both avoiding the blade and working against it. Unfortunately, Joshua seemed to almost be holding back, so the fact that she was having trouble now was not exactly a good thing for the moment. She needed to change the situation to her advantage, into something she was a little more familiar with. Catching the sword against her stake, Buffy pulled a Xena by lashing out with her feet, kicking and running up her opponent, and then back flipping away from him after solidly kicking his head.
Landing some twenty feet away, Buffy noticed Joshua shake and hold his head slightly after the unexpected maneuver. Hoping to still catch him off guard, Buffy threw the dark wooden stake in her hand straight at Joshua's chest, knowing that it wouldn't harm him so much as totally annoy him. Joshua saw it coming less than half a second after it left the blonde's hand. Knowing, partly, what she was doing, he did the first thing that came to mind; he threw his sword straight at her head.
The stake and sword missed each other by mere micrometers, completely unaffected by the passing. Joshua barely managed to twist his body just so and bring his hand up in time to catch the flying projectile. Buffy just pulled a 'Neo' by doing the limbo and reaching up to grab the hilt of the angel's blade as it passed by where her head had been less than a second before.
Both paused to judge their new weapons, and as though with one thought, spun the tools on their wrists into ready positions. Taking a moment to gauge how the other handled their weapon, the two readied themselves and then as before, launched into the air, only to meet midway with stake and sword to clash once more. The resulting flash of light suddenly made it seem like noonday in the white sands deserts of New Mexico.
Once again, the two landed, once everybody could see again, in the opposite position of the other, only this time they both seemed a little out of breath. The two knew, and noticed this as they both glanced at the tools they held. The sword was cracked right across the middle of the blade, and the stake was splintered and was now only a foot long instead of two. Glancing back to the other, and noticing the condition of the others weapon, they both independently came to a decision.
"Fisticuffs?" Joshua shouted/asked.
Buffy nodded and cast aside the useless sword, it disappearing in a flash of white as soon as it left her hand. Joshua did likewise with the broken stake, which disappeared in a flash of red. "Fisticuffs." Buffy announced and got into her ready position. Joshua got into a similar pose.
'Didn't expect that,' Joshua linked to her once again, referring to the way the weapons had broken after the conflict.
'Neither did I to be perfectly honest,' Buffy replied. 'But then again, we never really have fought before, at least not like this. Maybe its because we both have equal amounts of strength and power or something like that?'
'Maybe. Though this is just, you know, pretend. I mean the sword I materialized I would sooner use as a pointer on a blackboard rather than a real fight. What about you?' Joshua asked.
'Pretty much the same. For one, any stake over ten inches is pretty much useless unless you want to give yourself a whole bunch of splinters. That and I made it out of balsawood, dark balsawood, but still balsawood.' Buffy answered.
'So the whole thing behind the weapons fighting was the amount of power we put behind the weapons, not the weapons themselves?' Joshua questioned.
'I guess so. I wonder what might happen if we really did fight?' Buffy mused. 'Oh well, we can think about that a whole other time. Right now, we have a fight to finish, and I want to show you some of the things I've learned while I've been here.' Buffy unconsciously smiled as she thought that to him. Joshua mirrored her smile and returned, 'Bring. It. On.'
Buffy didn't disappoint.
Running at top ground speed, the two quickly crossed the ten-foot distance between them. As they met, Buffy quickly launched a flawless flying roundhouse kick at the taller darker haired man. He barely ducked in time and attempted a sweep at her landing legs. Attempted.
Buffy kept up her momentum after missing the Archangel, flying a little further past him than he had expected and landing well out of his reach. Regaining his balance after his leg sweep, Joshua stood, gauged something about his younger sister, and with little more warning than that, came at her, fists blazing in streaks as they brought the fight into closer quarters. Buffy was somewhat surprised by the intensity of the attacks that her older brother was throwing at her. Back at home, in training sessions with him, being the princess required her to learn at the very least the basic fighting skills, he and her other older brothers went extremely easy on her. She ofcourse hadn't realized that until she had finally learned enough to knock one to the floor when they weren't really trying. Yet now, she surprised even herself as she found that she easily blocked or countered every single hit he was throwing at her.
I guess my times as a Slayer, among other things, really has paid off in this department, she thought to herself as she almost casually threw several punches aside. I wonder if I should go on the offensive, or if I should stay defensive, just to see how far he'll go? continuing her inner dialogue. After barely dodging a very well aimed kick, Buffy decided that was enough little miss nice Slayer. She barely even registered that she was still thinking of herself as a Slayer, when she had never been one to start with. Didn't really matter since she suddenly started to kick Joshua's butt.
Catching a slow hit in her fist, she called upon her god strength and powers, bringing out her full fighting power. Joshua was somewhat surprised to feel the changes in his sister. She had been avoiding almost every single one of his attacks for the past five minutes as though he were some annoying mortal vying for her attention. Now all of a sudden, she caught his fist and started to apply a steady pressure to it. It certainly didn't hurt, but the move surprised him. So, surprising her, before he was in her hold for too long, he kicked her solidly in the gut, and using that force, jumped back away from her some twenty feet.
As far as anybody watching Buffy's reactions were concerned, she just let him go. But both of them knew that something different was happening. The last time they had even watched each other spar was longer than before the time man started using the wheel. Buffy, as a goddess of love was never meant to fight the battles of her realm. In fact the only female gods that ever did fight, for any reason were Willow, Amanda, and Tyra, or Tyranny who was the Goddess of War and Chaos.
Yet after her time here on Earth, Buffy found herself needing to learn a good deal of skills in the fighting department. Especially after her first incarnation here. It was a trying experience, and it proved that she needed to learn to take care of herself. Being the princess meant she had been pampered and shielded above all the rest. It didn't matter as she recalled now how spoiled and utterly terrible she had once been. Two thousand years fighting for your life and the lives of your family and friends can change any person and not always for the better.
Yet this time on Earth had been good for them all. Ripper had learned compassion in the face of everything he feared and at the same time, respected. Alexander, who was on the verge of declaring an iron-fist clad justice system because of the insanity of dealing with so much injustice in the world he was supposed to protect, had learned the many facets of all that he knew, and had gotten back in touch with the strong-willed being that he had once been. Willow…Willow had been the worst of those that had come. Despite her sister and daughter's, and even her entire family's attempts at trying to help her, she was nearly driven to insanity by her responsibilities at being the Special Guardian of the gods. Buffy was nearly brought to tears as she thought again of the state her sister, her beloved and dearest sister, had been in just before they had set out on the mission to come to Earth.
Shaking her head slightly to get her mind back on the fight, Buffy began to gauge Joshua as an opponent, checking his posture, his stance, the way he moved, looking for any possible openings in his defense or a flaw in his offense, just like Giles had taught her. Finding her opening, Buffy started running as fast as her god-powered legs could take her, only to be stopped two feet from in front of him by a disturbingly familiar sound reaching her ears. A scream of terror piercing the night.
Joshua heard the same thing she did, at the exact same moment that she did, but he was still surprised to see her just stop like that, right in front of him after she was about to no doubt start kicking his butt. Yet as soon as the two gods heard the scream, she froze absolutely still, tense as a cat on the prowl. It was the next second that surprised him most of all. In a blur of her clothing colors, Buffy ran out of the cemetery and in the general direction of the sound.
Joshua altered his clothing to dark blue jeans, a white T-shirt and a mottled gray jacket and then ran after her at a more normal pace, but one that the others, who immediately followed, had to run harder and faster than they ever had to just to keep him in sight. Spike, obviously, was doing a little better than the others, so not exactly out of breath he asked what had been bugging him practically all night.
"All right mates, what the bleedin' hell is goin' on here?" he shouted/asked as they ran after the Archangel.
"'Huff,' 'huff,' Not, 'huff,' 'huff,' now, 'huff,' Spike, 'huff' 'huff,' 'huff,'!" Willow gasped in answer as she ran faster than she ever had in her entire life after her two friends and strangely, family. They were just rounding another corner into a dead end alley, where Xander and Willow casually noticed that they and Buffy had often staked many a vampire in before.
At the end of the alley, backed against a wall, was a scared and injured young woman in light jeans, a torn red shirt and ruffled black hair. Holding her by the neck against that wall was a tall dark scaled skinned demon creature. Its most…distinguishing feature was, aside from its smell, the fact that it was naked and…uh, well (this part should probably classify this as at least an R, but I don't think I can change anything now) his sizably large…uh, engorgement that was, despite being obvious in what it was, definitely irregular and not even close to human.
Behind the two against the wall were the two angelic creatures, Joshua, and Buffy, in all her Slayer glory. From the moment that her fight with Joshua had begun, she had changed her day outfit into something more…Slayer styled. She had flared black pants, a red sweater with a large V that showed off the dark pink turtleneck that she also wore. And for those that had been close enough to see it, she still wore the gold heart pendant around her neck. Her hair was wavy loose after the run she had just taken, and even though only the demon could see her face, everybody knew she was ticked.
Speaking of the situation; the demon was holding the helpless girl against the grafittied wall with one hand wrapped completely around her throat, but was looking back at the upstart of a blond that had just interrupted him. She was cute enough he thought as he looked her over, but too short for his tastes. Not to mention she seemed to like red, judging from her dark red sneakers. Not to mention she had just appeared behind him and called out…
"Didn't ya hear me the first time ya big galute?" Buffy retorted to infuriate the hell trash in front of her. "I said, 'HEY big crooked and ugly, put the girl down, and try a real woman. Though I seriously doubt that you could even handle her, small fry!"
He bristled once again at the insidious insult she had just cast his way, and nearly did as she asked, dropping his prey, just so he could wipe that smug little grin off of her pretty little face. That's when he noticed the people behind her. The group that had been identified as the "Slayer's friends" stood at the mouth of the alley, but before them, and just behind this blond bitch, was what really grabbed his attention. An Archangel.
He grinned suddenly, a plan and several delusions of grandeur forming in his perverted primitive little mind. Then he did as told, he let the girl go. By throwing her straight at Buffy. Caught off guard at the tactic, Buffy easily caught the scared woman, and just barely managed to duck in time under the charging things assault. Expecting to have knocked the blond either aside with the girl, or kill her with his charge, the demon was caught a little off guard when he came to his real target, Joshua standing perfectly calm in the middle of the alley.
As the seven-foot demon reached him, he still didn't move, except maybe an eyebrow as, as suddenly as the demon had charged, a blinding white light filled the alley, covering view from Joshua and the demon. When the light cleared, the demon flew back against the wall that he had been holding the woman captive against just seconds earlier. He was more than somewhat surprised, and he wasn't the only one, to find him held, upside down and front against the wall by some kind of crackling white energy barrier.
"What…what, what have you done to me, stinking earth filth?!!" the demon screamed out in its gravely voice.
"Funny, cause I don't remember giving you permission to speak, demon. And you know perfectly well what I've done, just as you know what I am." Joshua answered it, contempt in every syllable of his voice.
The black-scaled demon only growled in any further response as Buffy tried to comfort the traumatized woman, and the others came further into the alley, trying to understand, having finally caught their breath, what was going on. Xander was first to speak.
"OK, I give, what is it?"
Expecting the answer to come from Giles, or maybe even Buffy, and at the least the Archangel that had just trapped it, Xander was more than a little surprised that it was Anya who answered his question.
"It's an Incubus demon. Though he looks rather…scarred, so he doesn't exactly look like he should, or like they all do, but he's an Incubus demon. You never forget the smell." She said deadpan, like explaining something very boring to a classroom full of asleep students.
"A what?" Xander asked, more shocked than confused.
"An Incubus, a sex demon…" Anya attempted to explain, but both Xander and Willow's hands shot out to cover the girl's overactive mouth. "Anya, shut up," they chorused.
"Are you OK?" Buffy quietly asked the girl, grabbing everyone's attention for the moment.
The young woman, trembling, could barely nod. She was shaking like she was freezing, yet everyone felt the heat of the summer night. Buffy held the traumatized human closer to her and began to rock the poor soul gently against her, softly humming. After a short spell (of time), the girl passed out, but Buffy continued to rock her until Joshua spoke.
"What do you want to do with it, Buffy?" he asked quietly, pointing at the offending creature.
Buffy stopped humming long enough to say, "Give it to Ripper."
Joshua immediately repeated the question to Giles. Giles stared at the ugly creature, staying as far from the husking corpse as much as possible, the stench nearly overwhelming the closer one got to it. Finally he just answered, "Allow me to destroy it, with help ofcourse." Joshua nodded his agreement and made a slight gesture, removing the white energy field around the beast. As soon as it was free, the demon snarled and leapt once more for Joshua, except that Spike, Xander, and Giles got to it before it could get to the angel. Using swords and axe, the black scarred and scaled demon was little more than pieces of ick hanging from the alley walls in less than ten minutes.
"All right, I'm going to ask one more, freakin' bloody time," Spike loudly announced as he turned to his group of allies. "WHAT…THE BLOODY…HELL…IS…GOIN' ON!!!"
"It's a long story Spike," Willow told him.
"Well, guess what Red, I don't bleedin' care! I've got the rest of my un-liven eternity to listen to it, so spill!" Spike shouted.
"After Spike, after…" came from the still rocking Buffy.
"After what?" he quietly asked, as though the image of the ex-Slayer would shatter if he even dared an angry thought at her.
"After I heal this unfortunate young woman, and we all get back to the shop." Joshua elaborated as he took steps towards Buffy and the young woman. Spike stepped in front of him before he got five feet to them. "Hold on right there mate," Spike halted him.
"Let him past Spike, he's the only one who can heal the best…out of all of us," Buffy pardoned her brother.
Spike gave him one more suspicious look, then stiffly stepped out of the way, letting the angel get on his knees beside the terrified girl held by Buffy. He carefully looked over every detail of the woman, and then brought his hands before him, as though he were praying, which amazingly to every other there, he began to do. It was little more than mutterings and hushed whispers that none could understand and few but Buffy and the woman could hear, but it was still more than obvious that he was indeed praying.
Shortly after he began, his touching palms began to glow, and after he stopped praying, he placed them gently against the girl, his right on her forehead, and his left against her abdomen. Buffy had let the woman lay flat on the ground, allowing Joshua to properly heal her. Shortly after touching her, Joshua closed his eyes once again, and lifted his head skyward and began to pray again. This time silently.
'Lord God All Mighty, Father of the Earth, the Heavens, and All that IS and shall ever be, I, your child and servant ask of you this night, Father, that You allow me to heal this innocent soul so that she may be saved and not taken before her time. This I ask of You, Father, in Your Name, I ask, let it be done, Amen.'
As he did this, the woman was soon covered in the purest most cleansing white light that any had ever seen on the face of the planet. After maybe a minute or more of this, the light receded to Joshua's palms, and there faded all together. Shortly later, Joshua removing his hands, the woman sat up, surprised by the people she did not know around her.
"Uh, hello," she greeted timidly.
Joshua smiled and helped her to her feet as Buffy did the introductions. "Hi, I'm Buffy, this is Joshua," she began pointing to herself and then her brother. "And everyone else is, Willow, Dawn, Xan…uh, Alexander, Giles, and Spike." She pointed out each as they waved in brief greeting. "Everyone, this is Jessica, Jessica Alba."
Jessica's eyes widened upon hearing this complete stranger announce her name. "Who…who-who are you-you people? What was that…that-that thing!? What's going on here?" she screamed as she slowly began to back away from Buffy and the others, towards the mouth of the alley. "Just leave me alone!" she finally screamed, as she turned and ran into the night.
"Buffy? What was that all about?" Willow asked, concerned.
Buffy looked mournfully after the woman running headlong into the darkness. After a time of heavy and anticipatory silence, Buffy answered, "She's my daughter Will. My youngest daughter, the soul of my eyes, and the keeper of all that is pure that I own. My little angel. Her real name is Maxabl (pronounce MAX-A-BULL), and she is my daughter."
Everyone was stunned into silence. Broken only by Anya, who already knew the answer to her stupid question, "So how many kids do you have?" the ex-demon callously put forth. Buffy barely shrugged as she stepped to the end of the alley. "I forget," she quietly replied. They followed her in her matching silence, Spike doing his best to old his curiosity and near-rage at what was happening to Buffy, until they reached the shop. And even then, it was held back by the door opening to let everyone in, and then it returned with a vengeance all its own.
What do you think? If you ever pay attention to the real names of any actors, you probably
know who this is. Author's
Challenge!!: I'm running out of ideas
for celebs and so forth to use as gods, and I'll use whatever input that is
good and you're willing to share and maybe read. So R&R with ideas about celebs you'd like to see as super
powered gods and what you'd like them to be. Thanks for the input. See you in
a week!!