Have to fight. Buffy thinks groggily. Must guard and protect. She senses the many lives on board. What? It feels a little like when she senses evil, which she does now, but different, quieter. She must protect them. It's as if everything she is, as the Slayer, has been intensified. Deepened and strengthened through her ordeal of the portal. By her sacrifice for her world. And by the release of her Gift. Her body surges with power. Yes. Whispers a voice, the One's voice, Sineya. Yes. Answers every part of my being, from my blood to my bone, and I get up.
"What," whispers Sophia, leaving Traed with a woman and rushing to the girl's side, her guards hurrying to keep up. "Are you alright? Your friend, Trance is in Hydroponics. But we're under attack. Lie back, there is nothing you can do, soon my son will…"
The doors to Hydroponics burst open, heralding the arrival of five Magog. Sounds from the corridor indicating the impending arrival of another wave. Sophia's guards and two of the more able-bodied male patients move to meet the onslaught.
"I'll be fine," Buffy reassures Sophia, jumping up from her cot as the men struggle with the enemy. "I'll be just fine. Go, watch after the others. Go back to your child." Buffy ordered as she marched over to the fight. "I just have to teach them," indicating the Magog, "a lesson on manners."
Sophia automatically does as she orders and watches in amazement at the scene, which unfolds before her.
One Magog lies dead, killed by a phasor blast from one of the guards. The male patients have already been taken out of the fight, while the guards struggle to hold back three Magog. The remaining beast makes a move toward the defensive line of Neitzschean men, and the women and children behind them. Suddenly, a hand comes out of nowhere; grabbing the Magog by the scruff of its neck and hurling it ten feet back out the door.
"It isn't nice to just barge into a room without knocking. Now go back and do it properly," quipped Buffy. The guards spare her an astonished glance before their opponents overwhelm them. "I said," Buffy grits out through her teeth, "to go back out and do it again!" Buffy moves to the guards' side, pulling a Magog away and slamming its face into her knee, then snap kicking another beast in the chest. She then picks up that one with her other hand and throws them out. She turns to find that the last Magog had opened its mouth and released some sort of acid/stunner? into the face of one guard as the other blew him away with a phasor blast. "Gross much," she comments. The guard whirls around to point the weapon at her.
"Whoa there cowboy, I'm here to help you. So how about putting the gun down before I decide that it pisses me off."
Sophia rushes forward. "Yes Nevar, she is Trance's friend. She helped us." Throws a questioning look to Buffy.
"Yep, friend of Trance's. Name's Buffy, Buffy Summers. Pleased to meetcha." Buffy said, still staring intently at the gun.
Nevar reluctantly puts down his weapon. "Good. I like your gun, looks real handy against those things."
"Thing…you don't know what they are," queries Nevar incredulously.
"Nope, but I know they're bad and ugly. That's good enough reason for me to kick their ass."
"They are the Magog, a race dedicated to killing all who cross their paths. They are parasites, laying their eggs into a host and waiting for their spawn to eat their way out of the body," Sophia said, disgust and anger plain in her voice.
"Yeah," Buffy responded, pulling a face at the description, "so things of badness, which I can kill."
"Alright," Buffy began, seeing movement in the corridor. "I'll just need these," she said, knocking down a metal shelf and yanking out two metal polls, each a foot and a half long. She twirled them between her fingers and gave a few practice swipes, much to the disbelief of the room in general. Even though they had all seen her easily handle three Magog, it was another thing altogether to see her rip a part metal as if it were no more substantial than paper.
Several women had come slowly inched forward to help the fallen guard. Buffy reached down and removed his guns, handing them to Sophia and another woman. "Here," she said, indicating the remaining guard and the women, "I want you to barricade the doors behind me and only open them when I say. If anything does manage to get past me, blast them into tomorrow. We clear."
"With all do respect…" began Nevar.
"But, but…" started Sophia.
"Are_We_Clear," Buffy forces out.
Sophia exchanges a beleaguered look with Nevar. "Uh…"
"Good," Buffy says cheerily, "we're agreed. Now, go and look after your little one. They're so fragile when they're small." Dawn. Flashback to when her parents came home with her little sister. "Now, barricade the doors behind me," she called, throwing them a wave as she leaves the room.
The guard and three women move to follow her instructions. One of the woman screams, seeing one of the Magog start to get up.
"Down boy," snipes Buffy, stepping on its neck and snapping the bone there like a twig. She turns as she hears more Magog coming towards them. "Go," she says tersely, "be safe."
Meanwhile…Charlemange and his men run towards Medical Deck from an opposing corridor from the one infested with Magog. Right behind him is Harper and Tyr.
He stop, mentally damning the huge ship with its many and identical corridors. "Which way," he directs his question to Tyr.
"Left."
"Wait," says Harper, "do you hear that?"
The rest pause for a second and hear the sounds of fast approaching feet and panting breath. The Neitzscheans pull out their weapons and prepare to fire on the approaching menace. Dimly, they can make out a brownish/purple figure, becoming more and more distinctly humanoid in form as it approaches.
"Wait," Harper said, waving down their weapons, "that's Trance."
Tyr grunts, while the others simply turn around and move on towards their destination. Uncaring if the others follow or not.
Trance catches up to Harper and Tyr, breathless. "These corridors should definitely be smaller," she comments, bending down and huffing slightly.
"You'd think the new, souped-up you would have more stamina," Harper jokes as he starts after Bolivar, falling right behind Tyr.
"Shut up," Trance retorts. She starts again after him. "Besides, about twenty meters behind me are some Magog."
"Damn it," he said, increasing his speed, "Tyr, Bolivar, wait up."
Back to Buffy…Buffy turns away to face the oncoming hoard as the doors seal up behind her. A small smile appears on her face…come and get me boys…
Two Magog round the corner, the Slayer twirls the bars around her as she nears them. She holds both bars to one side and uses them simultaneously when she strikes out. Knocking the first off to the side and moving on to the second. She sweeps his feet out from under him and thumps the bars down hard across his chest, crushing the rib cage and stopping his heart. She whirls back around to the Magog struggling to its feet and smashes the bars onto his head, taking it out of the game forever.
She becomes aware of sounds coming from both ends of the corridor and readies herself for the next confrontation.
The Magog come first, the spitting and gnashing mass of viciousness. And Buffy goes into action, in her element. She is dynamic, exalting in her physical capabilities. For the first time in her life, wholeheartedly embracing what she is…what she always was…the Slayer.
And that is what Charlemange Bolivar and the rest see when they finally reach the corridor to the Medical Deck. They stop in utter amassment, watching her work, seeing the many that lie fallen at her feet. Somewhere along the way, she had abandoned her makeshift weapons into the body of a charging Magog and resorted to simply utilizing her hands and feet. They stared as this little blonde girl flipped onto her hands, knocking down two Magog with her momentum, and then flipping high into the air and onto the shoulders of another Magog, quickly snapping its neck with the mere twist of her hand. She jumped off the falling body and proceeded to back flip all the way to their side of the corridor and in front of Charlemange. She stopped and turned quickly swinging her arm and halting its progress a millimeter from Bolivar's face.
"Spike?"