Disclaimer: Any character that you've seen on the show is owned by Joss, not me.
Colleen The new slayer
Jordan Psychic who receives The Visions
Holly Half Sellar Demon
Dawn The Key
Aaron Currently exploring magicks
*****
Colleen and Holly walked through the cemetery together on patrol. The Scooby Gang was in the worst shape that it had ever been in. There were way too many things that were going on at the same time. There were way too many huge events that happened in such a short span of time. The worst thing was that instead of getting closer for support, everyone was spreading out for isolation. Other then in study hall the whole group had yet to meet together since Dawn revealed she was the Key.
"How's Mike doing?" Holly asked Colleen.
Colleen gave a sad laugh. "I wouldn't know. We're finished."
"I'm sorry," Holly told Colleen.
"So am I," Colleen said to her. "Maybe we'll get back together again. Everything is just really screwed up right now."
"I wonder how he is dealing with his powers," Holly said.
"Maybe he should go out on patrol one night," Colleen suggested. "Maybe you could show him the ropes."
"I could talk to him about it," Holly said.
"Dawn is still pretty isolatey" Colleen said.
"I think she's worried that everyone is mad at her," Holly said.
"Maybe people are," Colleen said.
Holly was surprised. "You're mad at her?"
Colleen shook her head a little. "I'm not exactly thrilled about it. I mean, this whole time we were trying to find the Key while not getting killed because the big bad thought that we had the Key. I mean, I'm sorry but I can't help but feel a little bit of resentment."
"I should have known something was up," Holly said. "I mean, Dawn always seemed like she could relate to me keeping secrets."
"I understand that she was scared," Colleen said. "And I guess I'm not really mad at her, but still, I wish she would have told us sooner."
"Sometimes it's hard," Holly said. "To put yourself out there like that. Her whole life is just a universal figment of our imaginations. Her sister sacrificed herself so Dawn could live. It's hard to just come out and say something like that."
"It almost got Mike killed," Colleen pointed out.
"Kaoryn would have attacked no matter what," Holly said.
"Like I said I'm not mad," Colleen said. "I don't hate Dawn. She's one of my best friends. I don't know, I think I just need some more time to adjust to everything."
"I feel bad for Jordan," Holly said. "I think Kaoryn isn't so much thinking that you know where the Key is as much as she thinks that Jordan knows."
"We've been lucky," Colleen said. "Kaoryn hasn't shown up for about a month and a half. I wonder where she has been."
*****
Kaoryn sat in her bedroom in Glory's pocket dimension. The portal that connected the pocket dimension to Earth had been shut for a while now but it would be opening again soon. Kaoryn was grateful because she was starting to get a serious case of cabin fever. Spending a month and a half in a luxurious apartment in a pocket dimension with only a half insane goddess lost its novelty very fast.
Besides, there were things that Kaoryn had to do back on Earth. It had finally dawned on her that maybe the crazy god could have been wrong when she said that the Slayer had the Key. Maybe Kaoryn would have better luck with the psychic. Plus, Glory's mind seemed to be getting better by the day. She remembered a laptop in her old apartment that had information about the Key on it. Kaoryn now had two options to explore and a way back to Earth that would open in less than twenty four hours.
*****
Dawn sat on a swing in the park. It was a sunny Saturday afternoon so the park was full of little kids. Dawn smiled as she watched them play and run away from their mothers. She had never come to this park when she was younger because she had never been younger, but she had memories of being here. She remembered being brought here by her mother. She remembered that her favorite times were when her mother had forced Buffy to come along as well. Of course, Dawn had been nine when she had moved to Sunnydale so she outgrew the park phase pretty fast, but she still treasured those few fake memories.
Dawn let out a sigh as she thought about the recent past. She didn't know what the group thought about her. She hoped that they weren't mad but she knew that what she had done to them had been wrong. She had put them all into danger by keeping secrets from them. She could only hope that if she did have to sacrifice herself that everyone would be able to forgive her.
Dawn turned her head to the road when she heard a series of beeps. At first she ignored them because she figured that they couldn't possibly be beeping at her, but then she turned over to look. She saw Aaron leaning against the driver's door of a blue Jeep Cherokee.
"Come on," Aaron said as he got into the door of his new car.
Dawn ran over to the car and she couldn't help but have a smile on her face. "Aaron this is incredible," Dawn said as she got into the passenger seat. "When did your parents buy this?"
"It's my birthday present," Aaron told her. "My birthday present for the next thirty years."
"This is yours?" Dawn asked in amazement. Aaron nodded. "That's awesome."
Aaron smiled and began to drive. "Xander told me that you were out here. I wanted you to have the first ride."
The excitement of Aaron's new car soon passed and Dawn was once again upset about her life. "Where are we going?" Dawn asked him.
"It's a surprise," Aaron said with a smile. They didn't talk in the car. The music coming from Aaron's C.D. player took away the awkwardness from their silence.
"We're here," Aaron said after they had driven for about twenty minutes. They were on the edge of town. Dawn got out of the car to find that they were at the cliffs. She walked over towards the edge and sat looking down at Sunnydale. Aaron came and took a seat next to her.
"I figured that everybody was mad at me," Dawn told Aaron.
"Everybody is kind of taking a little break to get over themselves," Aaron told Dawn.
"I figured that you would be mad at me," Dawn told Aaron.
"Why?" Aaron asked.
"Because I've been such a bitch to you," Dawn told him.
"You had your reasons," Aaron told her.
"That's no excuse," Dawn told him. "Aaron, I'm closer to you than anyone else in this world. You mean so much to me. I shouldn't have hurt you like that."
"I knew the risk I was taking by putting myself out there like that," Aaron told Dawn. "It's not your fault that you don't feel the same way that I do."
"But I never even gave it a chance in my mind," Dawn told him. "I wasn't fair."
"Again I must point out that you had your reasons," Aaron said. "This gets to the reason of us coming out here." Dawn looked at Aaron. He met her eyes with his own to make sure that she knew that this was important to him. "Are you okay?"
Dawn kind of laughed and stared out over the cliff. "For the first time in my life I had friends. I had close, real friends. For the first time ever I honestly felt real. Now it's all gone."
"It's not gone," Aaron told her.
"Yes it is," Dawn told him. "I can't really ignore it anymore. I'm not real."
"That all depends on your definition of real," Aaron told her. He reached out and touched her hand. He pushed her hair back from her face. "This all seems pretty real to me."
"My whole life has been a lie," Dawn said. "All those memories you have of me before eighth grade? They're all a lie. Everything about me is this huge lie."
"You're not the one who told the lies," Aaron told her.
"But I live them," Dawn told Aaron. "And there's so much that I don't know. So many things I don't know about myself. Do I even have a soul? Am I even good?"
"How can you question whether or not you are good?" Aaron asked Dawn. "Maybe you should ask all those people that you saved."
"I'm not human," Dawn told Aaron. "I'm just a soulless ball of universe destroying energy."
"Someone really smart once said 'what you are doesn't dictate who you are.'" Aaron said, quoting Dawn. Dawn just smiled but she didn't respond. She just kept staring out at the city with a sad longing on her face.
"I'm not going to pretend to understand things like souls," Aaron told Dawn. "Despite what I like to make everyone believe I'm not really all that smart. But maybe, your Key energies or whatever they are, maybe they're not that different from a soul. I don't know what makes up a soul but I do know what a soul can make you do. I know that a soul can make you care, make you laugh, make you love. You do all these things. You eat, you breathe, you go to sleep at night. You come up with ideas and you save people's lives. Maybe your soul is just newer than everyone else's."
Dawn didn't respond. She quickly turned her head to look Aaron in the eye. He smiled at her and Dawn felt so grateful for everything that he had just told her. In that one moment of looking over at Aaron Dawn's whole outlook of him changed. She knew that whatever it was that Aaron felt for Dawn that she now felt the same exact way.
"Come on," Aaron said as he took Dawn's hand and helped her stand up. "You can come to work with me." Dawn's hand lingered in Aaron's a little longer then eventually he let go and she followed him to his car.
*****
Holly and Mike were in the back room of the Magic Box. They had been there for a few hours, ever since Aaron had come into work and Anya had left. Holly had been teaching Mike how to fight. Having super strength wasn't everything; you also had to know how to use it. Mike was learning fast though.
If you didn't know what was going on and you saw Holly and Mike you would think that they were fighting to the death. However, fighting together was a bonding experience that the two of them had desperately needed. They had once been so close and now they had drifted so far apart. Fighting together, in a twisted way, was letting them catch up on all the bonding that they had missed out on over the years.
As their fight gained more and more energy they were moving all over the room. As Mike did a back flip to move away from Holly he landed in a large circle of light that was cast from the high windows of the back room. As Holly ran to attack him Mike tried to deliver a hard kick to her face but making contact only sent Mike falling backwards.
"Mike," Holly helped him up, shifting into her human form. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," Mike said as he stood up. He felt like a moron.
"What happened?" Holly asked him. "It was like you didn't have any strength at all."
"I didn't," Mike told her. "When I'm in the daylight it's like I'm just a normal human being."
"That makes sense," Holly said after she thought about it, "Since you're powers come from the same place as vampires' powers come from."
Mike walked over to the bench on the other side of the room and sat down, taking a sip from his water bottle. Holly joined him and took a sip from her own bottle.
"I missed you," Mike told Holly. "I mean, before we became friends again, I missed you."
"I missed you too," Holly said quietly.
"You don't know how many times that I wanted to just go up and talk to you in school or call you or even write you a letter," Mike told her.
"Why didn't you?" Holly asked him.
"Why didn't you?" Mike asked her back.
"Because you're Mike Dalton," Holly explained to him. "You're the most popular kid in the school. I didn't have nearly enough popularity points to talk to you. I'm just a loser."
"You're not a loser," Mike told her. "You're far from a loser."
Holly smiled.
*****
Jordan had a premonition. It wasn't a vision or any clear-cut psychic anything, but he just had a feeling. That's why he walked from his house towards the Magic Box. That's also why he didn't go his usual route. Instead, he walked in a way that he knew that he would intercept Colleen if she was going towards the same destination. Sure enough, he wasn't surprised when he saw Colleen rounding a corner in front of him.
"Hey," Jordan called out to Colleen, getting her attention. Colleen looked a little surprised.
"Hey," Colleen said as she walked up to Jordan. "What are you doing?"
"Going for a walk," Jordan told her. "I thought I would go visit Aaron at work. What are you doing?"
"Pretty much the same," Colleen told him as they began to walk down the street towards the Magic Box."
"Does this have anything to do with Holly training Mike today?" Jordan asked Colleen.
"I'm that transparent, aren't I?" Colleen asked Jordan.
"Pretty much," Jordan told her as they walked into the Magic Box. Jordan and Colleen walked into the front door just as Holly and Mike walked in from the training room. Dawn sat at the table in the back while Aaron stood behind the counter.
"Were we supposed to be having a meeting?" Holly asked as she saw Jordan and Colleen.
"We were just out for a walk," Colleen told Holly. "How did training go?"
"Good," Mike said tersely, sitting down at the table. Colleen figured that Mike wouldn't really be in the mood to talk about them today.
"I like it when you guys are all here," Aaron told his friends, "It makes work seem so much less like work."
"It's good that you are all here," everyone was looking over at Jordan, who wasn't talking like Jordan. Mike and Holly had never seen this before, but Aaron, Dawn and Colleen knew what it was. The Powers That Be were making contact with them directly.
"What's going on?" Mike asked Jordan. He looked around and saw that the only person that was confused was Holly.
"It's The Powers That Be," Dawn explained. "They're making contact with us directly."
"Which means that something's up," Colleen said. Colleen, Aaron, and Holly came to sit at the table and waited for The Powers to explain what they wanted to tell them.
"Now that you know the identity of the Key there is information that we have to share with you," The Powers began. "It's time that you learned the truth about the threat that you are facing."
"Kaoryn?" Colleen asked.
"Kaoryn's master," The Powers told Colleen. "Glorificus."
"It can't be," Dawn said slowly. "I mean, they found Ben's body. He was dead! She's dead!" Dawn's voice rose with her panic. No one knew what was going on.
"Glorificus's host in this dimension was destroyed," The Powers explained to Dawn, "But she has found refuge in a pocket dimension."
"Who is Glorificus?" Colleen asked.
"Glory," Dawn said. Everyone remembered the Beast from Dawn's revelation about being the Key.
"So she's in a pocket dimension?" Aaron asked. "Like that Oracle dimension."
"Glory is tied to the powers of The Key," The Powers explained. "When her host was destroyed she was lost between dimensions. She was able to create a small pocket dimension to survive in."
"So this is my fault," Dawn said.
"No it's not," Aaron told her.
"If Glory is the Big Bad then why doesn't she just tell Kaoryn that Dawn is the Key?" Holly asked.
"Glorificus's ordeal has caused her to lose mental stability. Her memory of recent events has been stripped from her," The Powers explained. "She has recently remembered a laptop that has important information regarding the Key in her apartment. Kaoryn will be coming to this realm tonight to locate that laptop as well as something else."
"What?" Colleen asked.
"Jordan," The Powers said as they left Jordan. Jordan looked confused. "Did I just do that herald thing again?" Jordan asked the others. They nodded.
"Kaoryn works for Glory," Colleen filled Jordan in. "She's coming tonight to get a laptop and to come after you."
"Oh," Jordan said.
"I get it!" Aaron said. Everyone looked at him. "Oh, sorry. I was just thinking about how Kaoryn was so strong. She was feeding off of Glory. I think that if a vampire was drinking the blood of a god that it would make them stronger. I mean, it makes sense."
"So what's the plan?" Holly asked Colleen.
"We should do two teams," Colleen told Holly. "One team to go for the laptop and the other team to guard Jordan and Dawn."
"I guess I'm on guard duty," Aaron said. "What with having to work and everything."
"So I guess that means that one of you is coming with me and the other one is staying here," Colleen said as she looked at Holly and Mike.
"I should probably stay here," Holly said. "I have a better chance against Kaoryn then Mike."
"So I guess I'm with you," Mike said. "I'll go get changed." Mike walked back into the back room.
"That shouldn't be awkward," Aaron said to Colleen.
"Shut up Aaron," Colleen said. She turned to Holly. "Can he fight?"
Holly nodded. "He learns fast."
"Good," Colleen said. She didn't know whether to be excited or upset that she was going to be alone with Mike tonight. "Dawn, do you know where Glory's apartment is?"
"Yeah," Dawn said. "I'll give you directions."
*****
Mike and Colleen walked to Glory's apartment in silence. It was dark so Mike's strength wasn't an issue. Colleen didn't want them to be fighting between themselves when they had to go up against Kaoryn but she had to talk to Mike. She had to try to explain.
"Mike," Colleen began.
"Colleen don't do this," Mike told her.
"I just wanted to make sure that you know that I'm sorry," Colleen told him.
"What do you want me to say?" Mike asked Colleen. "Don't you want me to tell you everything is forgiven? I can't just do that Colleen. You really hurt me."
"I know," Colleen told Mike. She stopped walking. "I just want it to stop hurting."
Mike frowned a little. "That's a little selfish of you." He started to walk again. "Come on we better get moving."
Colleen wiped the tear of her eye and she hurried to catch up with Mike.
*****
Kaoryn wandered around the dark, deserted apartment. Glory was mildly insane, but she seemed sure that the laptop was somewhere in this apartment. Eventually, Kaoryn had found it in the master bedroom. Taking the laptop she made her way out of the apartment and down the stairs into the lobby. When she got to the lobby though she was confronted by Colleen and Mike.
"Give me the laptop," Colleen said to Kaoryn.
Kaoryn looked over from Colleen to Mike. She was confused. "You're supposed to be a vampire."
"What can I say," Mike told her. "I don't drink." Colleen and Kaoryn stared at Mike. "You know. Blood? I don't drink blood. It was supposed to be a joke." Colleen and Kaoryn both got expressions of "Ah" on there face. Suddenly though, Colleen and Kaoryn were fighting each other.
"I thought you would have learned not to bring your boyfriend with you when you're fighting," Kaoryn said to Colleen. Colleen didn't have any witty comments to make in response but she did become a lot more vicious in her attacks. Kaoryn was taken aback by the fury in Colleen's blows. Before she could even attempt to gain an advantage in the attack Colleen was joined by Mike. Kaoryn was shocked by Mike's strength. She was so shocked that it took her a little while to realize that if she didn't get out of the apartment building very soon that she was going to be staked.
Kaoryn was close to a window. She looked at where she had left the laptop on the floor and then looked at Mike and Colleen standing between her and it. Reluctantly, Kaoryn jumped out of the windows behind her, giving a loud scream of frustration as she left.
Mike and Colleen looked back at the laptop. Mike walked over and picked it up.
"Good fight," Colleen said to Mike.
"Thanks," was Mike's only response. He walked out of the apartment without waiting for Colleen.