Title: Replacement 4/?
Author: Brekkia
Contact:
Date: 5/2/02
Spoilers: Through The Gift then goes AU
Summary: Willow takes up Slaying after The Gift.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: None
Category: General
Distribution: I guess if you want it that badly... Just send 19.95 to... I kid. Ask and ye shall receive.
Feedback: Constructive criticism always welcome. Praise abjectly sought.
Disclaimer: It all belongs to Joss, Mutant Enemy, etc., etc., etc. I just let them have all the fun Joss won't. I own nothing except my twisted mind, which you really don't want. Please don't sue.

Replacement

Before Sook left the Dojo he ordered Willow to spend the next two hours on conditioning and strength training. A fifteen-pound weight vest and four ten-pound weight-bands were stored in the base of the Wing Chun dummy, along with a thirty-pound vest. Willow pulled out the lighter vest and put it on, then she strapped the bands to her wrists and ankles. The first time Sook had Willow put on the weights, she couldn't move or initiate a decent punch or kick. But now, four months later, Willow could do her exercises for an hour before fatigue set in and she needed to work at keeping her form.

As grueling as the katas were, Willow preferred this form of training to sparring with Sook because when it was just her against the weights, the only enemy Willow fought was herself—more specifically her own weaknesses. And there was no greater challenge to Willow than when her will was all that stood between her and collapsing in a heap on the floor. Of course Willow could never tell Sook this. She would hate to see what point he'd want to make about that attitude. Sook believed she should only feel tested when fighting opponents who wanted to kill her, not during her shadow boxing.

As Willow began a twenty-punch repetition with her left arm—her right was still bothering her—she allowed her body to perform the deeply learned motions on its own as her attention wandered.

Xander…

Xander, like Dawn, was hiding behind an almost convincing grin. He pretended like he hadn't been dying inside ever since Buffy tossed herself off the scaffold. It wasn't until the night Angel brought the Argeseous scroll that Willow caught her first glimpse of how Xander really felt, and of the other secrets he kept.

It was just a small peek before that sardonic, carefree mask Xander loved to wear fell back in place…

"Did you think I wouldn't figure it out?" Angel asked the second after Willow opened the front door and unveiled him standing on the porch, looking about as angry as he sounded. The smile that had been on Willow's face faded and Angel swept over the thresh-hold and into the house.

Willow closed the door and followed Angel into the living room where Xander, Tara, Anya, and Dawn were watching TV. Angel's loud accusation had them all staring at the vampire with the same startled expression Willow had at the door. As Willow entered the room Angel was pacing, no, stalking back and forth over the area rug so fast, his black overcoat hardly had time to billow out behind him before he changed direction. Then he suddenly stopped and faced Willow and asked, "You think she would have wanted you to do this? That getting yourself killed is going to honor her?"

Willow nervously glanced from Angel to her friends and lover. This is not a conversation she wanted to have in front of them. Angel noticed her nervousness and made it out for what it was.

"What a surprise. You haven't told them, have you?" Angel turned away from Willow and looked at the small group sitting around the TV, even though he was only familiar with half the people before him.

"Angel--"

"Do you know what she's up to?" Angel jerked a thumb over his shoulder at Willow.

Willow quickly moved to grab Angel's other arm and tried to pull him back towards the door. "Angel, let's talk about this outside, please!"

He ignored Willow and let her tug ineffectually on his arm.

"She's going to start slaying," Angel turned back to Willow, "or are you doing that already? It wouldn't surprise me."

"Hey, Deadness, of course she's slaying," Xander spoke up first, "we all are. Even Spike. It's a team effort."

"Is that right, Xander? Oh, then she's talked to you all about a certain scroll she wanted Wesley to find for her? The Scroll of Argeseous?"

Tara let out a small gasp then stared at Willow with surprise and hurt. Willow turned her head and stared at the stairs leading up to the upper floor. Angel's gaze zeroed in on Tara.

"You're familiar with it, I see—how about you, Xander? Dawn? Ma'am?" Angel looked to each of them.

"Anya," Anya clarified for the vampire, "we've met. And I've heard of that scroll. I think it's used--"

"Angel--" Willow broke in and then Angel interrupted her.

"That's right, nice to see you again, Anya. Why don't I let everyone else in on the secret, too? The Scroll of Argeseous is inscribed with an alchemy spell for a magical stimulate which temporarily reverses the wear and tear high level magics puts your body through. The kind of high level magic a human is not meant to use for extended periods of time."

Tara stood up from the couch and rushed up the stairs, a few seconds later they all heard a door slam. Willow wanted to run after her, but she wasn't sure she was ready to face Tara after-- well--not exactly lying, but certainly something so closely related lying was it's first cousin. Instead Willow stood behind Angel, crossed her arms over her belly and looked at the floor.

"There's Angel for you," Xander began as he got off the sofa, "always making the girls cry."

"I'm sorry your friend got hurt, but you guys need to know what Willow's plans are!"

"So she's beefing up on her abracadabra, in case you haven't noticed we could use the help here," Xander replied.

"Not the kind of help she wants to give. It's likely to get her killed!"

"Not to overstate or anything."

"Xander, she's taking it too far when she starts messing with this stuff," Angel said.

"So what?"

Angel looked at Xander like he'd said Buffy was miraculously returned to life and was standing right beside Angel. Even Willow looked up at Xander so alarming was that question to her ears.

"That's right, Angel… So what?"

"Don't you care at all that she's preparing to get herself killed trying to take… trying to patrol?"

Willow for a moment took her eyes away from Xander and looked at Dawn. Though Angel avoided mentioning Buffy's name, there wasn't a person in the room who didn't know what his original words intended to be. Dawn's eyes looked shiny as if she were on the verge of crying and it broke Willow's heart. A few minutes ago, before Angel came, Dawn laughed with the rest of them as they watched one of the Loony Tunes tape from Xander's private stash. It was the first time in a long time Willow had seen Dawn let herself have a good time.

"I care," Xander said quietly at first then his voice grew louder as he continued, "but the truth is if I was in her place and I had her powers, I'd be doing the same thing."

Angel inhaled sharply and then said, "You already knew."

Willow's gaze darted back onto Xander. She was more shocked than Angel when she saw the expression on Xander's face. Xander did know about her!

"She's been my friend since we were in diapers, so yeah, I knew."

Xander turned away from Angel and went to Dawn. He knelt down in front of her and took her hand in his. He was staring down at her delicate fingers as he went on, "Willow may not have been chosen like Buffy, or even like you, Angel, but that doesn't mean she can't decide to choose herself. It's her choice."

"She'll be dead in a month," Angel declared gravely.

Xander looked up from Dawn's hand and half turned to Angel and laughed. The laugh was soft and ironic. "Angel, man, you obviously haven't seen Wills in action lately."

"Who are you?"

The question instantly snapped Willow out of her reverie and she whirled about and located where the voice originated.

It came from woman, a very beautiful woman and she was standing inside the cellar's doorway. She was of Asian descent, mid-twenties, maybe early thirties, and two inches taller than Willow because of the black high heels she had on. She had long, straight, black hair, which she kept groomed away from her round small boned face. Her lips were small yet managed to be lush and pouty, and also naturally very pink. She had a button nose that could have been right at home on a child's face.

Her complexion was smooth except for one obvious flaw: A half-faded scar that stretched across the left side of her face that began at her hairline and ended at her delicate jaw line.

The woman wore a dark gray two piece suit that practically flowed over her slender frame, and yet at the same time hugged her curves. Enough so that Willow could tell the woman had fuller breasts than her and what Tara called childbearing hips.

"Who are you?" The woman asked again. Though her tone of voice was less inquiring and more threatening in nature this time.

"No, who are you?" Willow shot back and had to fight back a smile, because that retort sounded pretty sassy to her. After months of solo slaying, her bad ass attitude was coming along quite nicely.

"Do you want to die, little girl?" But not quite as far along as the strange woman's, apparently.

There was something in the woman's eyes that told Willow she wasn't making an idle threat. Willow slowly began un-strapping the weight-bands from around her wrists. She was mostly used to the added weight but the bands would still make her tire faster than if she didn't have them on. And if the woman intended on using violence Willow wanted to have advantages not hindrances. She hoped she'd be able to get the ankle-bands off, too, if possible.

The vest was too much to hope for.

"Been trying to avoid it," Willow stated as she unhooked the band around her left wrist. She let it fall to the mat and started working the other one undone.

"Then I tell you now provoking me is no way to avoid death," the woman said in a smooth dark voice. She had an accent identical to Sook's, but her voice was patently female and held that sultry tone men—and women—broke their necks trying to find in a crowded room. "Now tell me, who are you?"

Willow let the right weight-band drop and tried to look casual as she bent at the knees to reach the ankle-bands, all without taking her gaze away from the woman. "My name is Willow."

"Willow… horyuu… where is my brother?"

Willow stopped unfastening for a second and narrowed her eyes at the woman. After a moment she went back to freeing her ankles before replying. "Sook is you're brother."

The woman knodded slowly and stepped closer just as Willow got the last band off.

Willow straightened up quickly, feeling lighter and more confident. She immediately went loose, her arms held slightly akimbo, readying her body for a fight. The woman stopped five feet short of Willow's position and looked Willow over with a frown.

"What has my brother been putting in your head, horyuu, that you think for a moment I cannot kill you where you stand?"

Before Willow could blink, she and the woman stood toe to toe and the woman's left hand had brushed a sweat slicked bang away from Willow's forehead.

One of those short pauses of disbelief that sometimes seemed to take forever perceptually over took Willow and she stared at the woman with wide-eyes. I don't think Sook moves that fast! Willow thought before instinct took over and she moved to knock the woman's hand away. Or at least that was her intent, but the woman easily avoided Willow's attempt. Her arm swinging ahead of Willow's backhanded swipe then came back up between their bodies and she slapped Willow's cheek. The sound of the woman's hand meeting Willow's damp skin resounded throughout the makeshift Dojo.

Willow's head snapped to the side then was pulled backward when the woman claiming to be Sook's sister grabbed Willow's short hair and jerked her head back.

The woman oozed in even closer to Willow, so close their hips were pressing together tightly. Her other arm wrapping around Willow's waist almost like a lover. The woman's suit felt like silk against Willow's bare skin, and her soft, even breathing caressed Willow's vulnerable throat.

If the woman had been a vampire…

Willow hadn't let out so much as a yelp after the woman's stinging blow; the attack was too damn fast. Willow held her tongue mostly out of fear, because it would take so little for the woman to give one moderate tug on Willow's hair and her neck would snap. And Willow couldn't think of any way out of the hold the woman had her in. Even magically throwing her attacker was out—the woman was too close and her grip too strong. Willow was liable to hurt herself in the process. There were more effective spells, but all of them would either maim or kill a human. And Willow wasn't sure she could bring herself kill a human being.

"Jian must have neglected teaching you manners."

"Last… time I heard… touching people without their permission was pretty rude," Willow gasped out, blinking at the ceiling.

The woman let out a lilting laugh that sent chills through Willow. "There are manners, and then there are manners, my little horyuu. The set I am referring to are the ones where you show your betters respect."

I'll show you respect, you…

"I'll ask again: where is my brother?"

Willow wondered what Buffy would do in this predicament. Willow couldn't muscle her way out the woman's embrace and smart aleck remarks were liable to just piss her off. So Willow had only one choice—other than killing the woman that is. Willow closed her eyes and swallowed to soothe her dry throat before she spoke. Feeling like she was swallowing what was left of her pride, too.

Buffy would so never do what I'm about to do.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. I didn't mean to show you any disrespect."

"Of course not," the woman whispered.

"Sook, your brother, left me here to train. To where I do not know."

"I want to believe you."

"I'm telling you the truth."

"How can I be sure?"

"Release my disciple, Yasha."

Willow tried to take her eyes away from the ceiling to find Sook, but her head was locked in place by Yasha's grip.

"Jian. How good it is to see you, my brother."

"Let her go." Sook's voice sounded closer to Willow.

"No, this one is a waste of time. It's better that I weed her out for you," Yasha said.

Yasha unfurled her arm from around Willow's waist and placed her hand around Willow's throat. It was a light touch at first, but then Yasha's fingers turned into claws and started digging steadily into Willow's flesh. All oxygen stopped flowing to Willow's lungs when Yasha cut off her air passage. She grabbed Yasha's forearm with both hands and tried to pull the woman's hand away with every ounce of strength she had at her disposal. But that strength was waning with every passing second.

"She is strong," Yasha commented as she increased pressure around Willow's throat, "but I was stronger when I was half her age."

"As was I, but think on it, Yasha. We began training as children. That one has only been training four months."

"Fah! I smell magic all over her! It gives your horyuu what little strength she has."

"In part," Sook agreed.

"So you admit that you have given our arts to an infidel witch!" Yasha snarled. Willow knew she was seconds away from blacking out, and moments away from dying if Yasha kept squeezing… Squeezing…

Willow sat up with a gasp, her hand reaching for her throat. She hissed when her fingers scraped bruises. Glancing around, Willow saw that she was sitting on the same mat she'd been exercising on. And strangled on. She didn't see Sook or his sister anywhere.

Willow got to her feet and rolled her head around to work out the sore stiffness in her neck.

"Ow."

Willow trudged her way over to her gym bag. Lacking the strength to bend down, Willow pressed her back against the cold concrete wall and slid down next to the bag. Willow reached for the sack and unzipped it without looking. She pulled out one of the bottled waters and drank deeply. She felt nothing, thought nothing, and stared blankly at the opposite wall.

When the bottle was half empty, Willow poured the rest over her head and then tossed the bottle away hard enough that it rebounded off the wall to her right with a explosive pop.

"Well," she said with a flat yet vaguely disgusted tone of voice, "that was embarrassing."