Fray Episode 18: Spellbound
Kennedy rushed towards the edge of the cliff that, just seconds before, Fray had jumped over. "What in the hell does she think she's doing?" Dawn yelled, sliding into place beside Kennedy a second later.
The two girls looked into the cavern below but they saw nothing. No falling body, no gore on the rocks below. All the Slayers crowded around, their hair and faces streaked with drying blood and their clothes torn, the only evidence of the battle that had just taken place. The Timers' bodies had disappeared as soon as they were killed. The only other evidence was the body of a young man lying near a wall. Blood formed a circle on the left side of his body and a knife lying next to his form gave the reason for the wound. Willow and Buffy stood back from the rest of the group, talking quietly. Finally Dawn turned and rushed back towards them.
"We need to do something," she said. "Fray just jumped over that."
"I know Dawn, we all saw her," Buffy said.
Dawn glared at her sister. "And you didn't even try to stop her."
Buffy smiled. "What could I have done?"
Dawn's glare deepened but she kept her mouth shut. "She'll be fine," Willow said. "Get everyone over here and we'll explain."
Dawn called for the other Slayer's and the others to come over. They quickly crowded around Buffy and Willow and waited for an explanation.
Willow turned to Buffy. "You first?" she asked.
Buffy nodded and walked to the middle of the group. "After the battle with Caleb and the First I didn't have any need for the scythe. We didn't need that type of weapon and I didn't want something that powerful just lying around to be used by someone with not-so-good intentions. I didn't know of anywhere that I could hide it. I mean if something found it once, they could find it again. I went to Willow for help. With her newly granted goddess powers I figured that she might know of a place."
"And I did," Willow said. "Whatever happened when I used the scythe to turn all the Potentials into Slayers also caused all the memories and information that had been amassed about the Slayer to be given to me. My brain became a massive Slayer encyclopedia. I found out about a dimension created by The Powers That Be about five thousand years ago. They used it to train Slayers when Watchers didn't really exist. There were people to lead them but not to train them. All the Slayers were sent to this place to train. One week there is like an hour here. Fray could be there for a year and come back in a week.
"Basically, the final test that the overseers of this dimension required a Slayer to run was the Gauntlet. A massive maze with a dozen trials to get through. The Scythe is the prize at the end of the maze and the entrance is located in the cavern."
"Then how come the vampires didn't find it?" Rona asked.
"I put the entrance here as soon as Buffy asked me to find a place to hide the weapon. As soon as I became the ultimate Watcher, I gained control over the training dimension."
"So Fray's basically in a giant boot camp world?" Dawn asked.
Buffy nodded. "The Watchers that rule over the dimension have permission to train any Slayer that gets there but they'll still make them run the gauntlet. When Fray gets back she'll be the most powerful Slayer that ever existed and probably will ever exist."
"If she gets back," one of the Slayers said.
Dawn turned. "She will get back," she snapped.
The other Slayer nodded and moved to the back of the crowd. "Where will she exit at?" Xander asked.
"The apartment," Buffy said.
"The what?" Kennedy asked. "You mean I've been sleeping on the exit to a giant slayer training dimension and didn't even know it."
Willow nodded and Kennedy sighed. "That sounds about normal."
Willow smiled. "We'd all better get back. There's not much we can do here. We should wait for her back in Sunnydale."
The group turned and started to leave. Dawn grabbed Kennedy's wrist and pointed to Hunter's body. "What should we do about him?"
"What Fray wanted us to do," Kennedy said. "We leave him down here. His bones will add to the memorial. Another battle fought and more noble blood spilled."
"Yeah," Dawn whispered. "But at least we're two and oh on the battlefield."
Kennedy nodded and the two girls walked out of the Hellmouth.
Fray was falling, spinning through darkness. Air stung at her cheeks as she fell faster and faster, drying the tears that still streaked her cheeks. He's really gone, Fray though to herself.
The falling didn't bother her. She knew this was where she was supposed to be and now she knew what to do. She remembered all of her training, all of her life before she had been sent here. She knew everything that she was supposed to know. After her experience here though, a lot of that seemed like nothing. It wasn't important to her now that she knew it. Everything she had gone through here, with Kennedy and Willow and Dawn and Hunter and all the others. That was important to her. Fray wondered if she'd remember that when she went back.
Suddenly she stopped falling and she was rotated until she felt like she was standing. Fray blinked a couple of times but the darkness still surrounded her. "Why are you here, Slayer," A deep voice asked out of the darkness.
"I am not from this time. You believe it is 2003 when in my time it is actually 2508. In my time the world is in peril, a great war has broken out between the armies of darkness and those of good. I am a Slayer in my time but I need the weapon. The Scythe, forged by the Ancients and wielded by the most powerful Slayer in battle. Never before has there been such a need for a weapon so great."
"To retrieve the weapon, you know what lies before you."
"I do," Fray said. "I am willing to train in your ways. I am willing to fight with you and for you but I will also do what I must do to bring the Scythe home and protect my people."
"Understood," the voice said. "You will train with us for one year. In your time it will not be that long. When you go home, mere days will have gone by. If you have proved yourself to us in that time you may run the gauntlet. If you pass, that which you seek will be your prize."
Fray hissed silently. One year, I don't have that time. The armies of evil are knocking on my city's gates as we speak. I can not wait that long.
"You have to Fader," the voice came again, reading her thoughts. "Your city walls will still be there when you return."
Fray nodded. "I will train," she yelled into the darkness.
"Good," the voice said.
Suddenly the void disappeared and Fray found herself standing in a small wooden room. There was a table on one side of the room and a long row of full bookcases on the other side. A young man sat on the edge of the table. His head was shaved except for a thin stripe running down the middle of his scalp. It hung braided behind his back but Fray could tell that it easily reached the ground when it was not tied up. His hair was dark black, combining with the robe he wore and becoming almost invisible in the dark cloth. His eyes however, were pale blue. They seemed to shine in the darkness of the room. He smiled lightly and hopped off the table. He was tall and his broad shoulders stretched his robe. "Welcome to Saradoul," he said. "The training grounds of the Slayers. I have brought you here to give you a little of our history so that you will not be alarmed by what you see outside this room. Saradoul has existed for millions of years. We are a small world in a galaxy that your science can not reach, but your magic can.
"A few millennia ago, a young warlock by the name of Barateth came to us and told us of a line of young women, destined to fight the hoards of vampires and daemons that roamed the Earth. We heard that many of these girls lived for only a year or two and then were killed, their lack of training shocked us and we took pity on them. The Brotherhood was created. A type of Watchers Council for Slayers to come and train. Doors were placed in strategic locations and only Slayers could walk through to be trained. You are the first recruit in one thousand years, since the Watchers have been created as you see them now."
"What is this Brotherhood?" Fray asked.
"You have heard of Shaolin Monks on Earth. Warriors that focus both their spirits and their minds to turn their bodies into weapons?"
"Yes," Fray said.
"We are Saradoul's Monks. We are warriors but also men of honor and valor."
"Only men?" Fray asked, her brow furrowing.
The young man laughed. "Here we have only men. It is not a sexist thing but instead is because of a vow of purity that Saradoul took centuries ago. Men and women are separated unless they plan to wed and have children. It keeps our planet from being overpopulated. Barateth simply found us first or it would be women training you at this time."
Fray nodded. "Alright," she said. "When do we begin?"
The man smiled. "You are eager," he said. "I like that. My name is Aradol and I am your assigned. Basically a tutor while you are here. You will train in academics, philosophy, and martial arts. Now, come with me to Saradoul."
Aradol walked over to a small door on one wall and opened it. Fray followed him out into the brightly lit courtyard. The compound she was in reminded her of something off a movie. It was walled with thick tree trunks serving as a barricade. There was a training ring in the middle of the compound and a dozen or so scattered wooden buildings inside the walls. There was a pen on one side of the area that held three milk cows and a dozen horses. Fray looked up and gasped. Over the wall she could see towering metal structures, piercing the sky. She could hear the whirring of machinery coming from far away. Saradoul was an amazingly technologically advanced city, only the Brotherhood seemed to have been untouched by time. "Cool," Fray whispered.
Aradol smiled again. "Come on," he said. "Let's get to work."
Kennedy rushed towards the edge of the cliff that, just seconds before, Fray had jumped over. "What in the hell does she think she's doing?" Dawn yelled, sliding into place beside Kennedy a second later.
The two girls looked into the cavern below but they saw nothing. No falling body, no gore on the rocks below. All the Slayers crowded around, their hair and faces streaked with drying blood and their clothes torn, the only evidence of the battle that had just taken place. The Timers' bodies had disappeared as soon as they were killed. The only other evidence was the body of a young man lying near a wall. Blood formed a circle on the left side of his body and a knife lying next to his form gave the reason for the wound. Willow and Buffy stood back from the rest of the group, talking quietly. Finally Dawn turned and rushed back towards them.
"We need to do something," she said. "Fray just jumped over that."
"I know Dawn, we all saw her," Buffy said.
Dawn glared at her sister. "And you didn't even try to stop her."
Buffy smiled. "What could I have done?"
Dawn's glare deepened but she kept her mouth shut. "She'll be fine," Willow said. "Get everyone over here and we'll explain."
Dawn called for the other Slayer's and the others to come over. They quickly crowded around Buffy and Willow and waited for an explanation.
Willow turned to Buffy. "You first?" she asked.
Buffy nodded and walked to the middle of the group. "After the battle with Caleb and the First I didn't have any need for the scythe. We didn't need that type of weapon and I didn't want something that powerful just lying around to be used by someone with not-so-good intentions. I didn't know of anywhere that I could hide it. I mean if something found it once, they could find it again. I went to Willow for help. With her newly granted goddess powers I figured that she might know of a place."
"And I did," Willow said. "Whatever happened when I used the scythe to turn all the Potentials into Slayers also caused all the memories and information that had been amassed about the Slayer to be given to me. My brain became a massive Slayer encyclopedia. I found out about a dimension created by The Powers That Be about five thousand years ago. They used it to train Slayers when Watchers didn't really exist. There were people to lead them but not to train them. All the Slayers were sent to this place to train. One week there is like an hour here. Fray could be there for a year and come back in a week.
"Basically, the final test that the overseers of this dimension required a Slayer to run was the Gauntlet. A massive maze with a dozen trials to get through. The Scythe is the prize at the end of the maze and the entrance is located in the cavern."
"Then how come the vampires didn't find it?" Rona asked.
"I put the entrance here as soon as Buffy asked me to find a place to hide the weapon. As soon as I became the ultimate Watcher, I gained control over the training dimension."
"So Fray's basically in a giant boot camp world?" Dawn asked.
Buffy nodded. "The Watchers that rule over the dimension have permission to train any Slayer that gets there but they'll still make them run the gauntlet. When Fray gets back she'll be the most powerful Slayer that ever existed and probably will ever exist."
"If she gets back," one of the Slayers said.
Dawn turned. "She will get back," she snapped.
The other Slayer nodded and moved to the back of the crowd. "Where will she exit at?" Xander asked.
"The apartment," Buffy said.
"The what?" Kennedy asked. "You mean I've been sleeping on the exit to a giant slayer training dimension and didn't even know it."
Willow nodded and Kennedy sighed. "That sounds about normal."
Willow smiled. "We'd all better get back. There's not much we can do here. We should wait for her back in Sunnydale."
The group turned and started to leave. Dawn grabbed Kennedy's wrist and pointed to Hunter's body. "What should we do about him?"
"What Fray wanted us to do," Kennedy said. "We leave him down here. His bones will add to the memorial. Another battle fought and more noble blood spilled."
"Yeah," Dawn whispered. "But at least we're two and oh on the battlefield."
Kennedy nodded and the two girls walked out of the Hellmouth.
Fray was falling, spinning through darkness. Air stung at her cheeks as she fell faster and faster, drying the tears that still streaked her cheeks. He's really gone, Fray though to herself.
The falling didn't bother her. She knew this was where she was supposed to be and now she knew what to do. She remembered all of her training, all of her life before she had been sent here. She knew everything that she was supposed to know. After her experience here though, a lot of that seemed like nothing. It wasn't important to her now that she knew it. Everything she had gone through here, with Kennedy and Willow and Dawn and Hunter and all the others. That was important to her. Fray wondered if she'd remember that when she went back.
Suddenly she stopped falling and she was rotated until she felt like she was standing. Fray blinked a couple of times but the darkness still surrounded her. "Why are you here, Slayer," A deep voice asked out of the darkness.
"I am not from this time. You believe it is 2003 when in my time it is actually 2508. In my time the world is in peril, a great war has broken out between the armies of darkness and those of good. I am a Slayer in my time but I need the weapon. The Scythe, forged by the Ancients and wielded by the most powerful Slayer in battle. Never before has there been such a need for a weapon so great."
"To retrieve the weapon, you know what lies before you."
"I do," Fray said. "I am willing to train in your ways. I am willing to fight with you and for you but I will also do what I must do to bring the Scythe home and protect my people."
"Understood," the voice said. "You will train with us for one year. In your time it will not be that long. When you go home, mere days will have gone by. If you have proved yourself to us in that time you may run the gauntlet. If you pass, that which you seek will be your prize."
Fray hissed silently. One year, I don't have that time. The armies of evil are knocking on my city's gates as we speak. I can not wait that long.
"You have to Fader," the voice came again, reading her thoughts. "Your city walls will still be there when you return."
Fray nodded. "I will train," she yelled into the darkness.
"Good," the voice said.
Suddenly the void disappeared and Fray found herself standing in a small wooden room. There was a table on one side of the room and a long row of full bookcases on the other side. A young man sat on the edge of the table. His head was shaved except for a thin stripe running down the middle of his scalp. It hung braided behind his back but Fray could tell that it easily reached the ground when it was not tied up. His hair was dark black, combining with the robe he wore and becoming almost invisible in the dark cloth. His eyes however, were pale blue. They seemed to shine in the darkness of the room. He smiled lightly and hopped off the table. He was tall and his broad shoulders stretched his robe. "Welcome to Saradoul," he said. "The training grounds of the Slayers. I have brought you here to give you a little of our history so that you will not be alarmed by what you see outside this room. Saradoul has existed for millions of years. We are a small world in a galaxy that your science can not reach, but your magic can.
"A few millennia ago, a young warlock by the name of Barateth came to us and told us of a line of young women, destined to fight the hoards of vampires and daemons that roamed the Earth. We heard that many of these girls lived for only a year or two and then were killed, their lack of training shocked us and we took pity on them. The Brotherhood was created. A type of Watchers Council for Slayers to come and train. Doors were placed in strategic locations and only Slayers could walk through to be trained. You are the first recruit in one thousand years, since the Watchers have been created as you see them now."
"What is this Brotherhood?" Fray asked.
"You have heard of Shaolin Monks on Earth. Warriors that focus both their spirits and their minds to turn their bodies into weapons?"
"Yes," Fray said.
"We are Saradoul's Monks. We are warriors but also men of honor and valor."
"Only men?" Fray asked, her brow furrowing.
The young man laughed. "Here we have only men. It is not a sexist thing but instead is because of a vow of purity that Saradoul took centuries ago. Men and women are separated unless they plan to wed and have children. It keeps our planet from being overpopulated. Barateth simply found us first or it would be women training you at this time."
Fray nodded. "Alright," she said. "When do we begin?"
The man smiled. "You are eager," he said. "I like that. My name is Aradol and I am your assigned. Basically a tutor while you are here. You will train in academics, philosophy, and martial arts. Now, come with me to Saradoul."
Aradol walked over to a small door on one wall and opened it. Fray followed him out into the brightly lit courtyard. The compound she was in reminded her of something off a movie. It was walled with thick tree trunks serving as a barricade. There was a training ring in the middle of the compound and a dozen or so scattered wooden buildings inside the walls. There was a pen on one side of the area that held three milk cows and a dozen horses. Fray looked up and gasped. Over the wall she could see towering metal structures, piercing the sky. She could hear the whirring of machinery coming from far away. Saradoul was an amazingly technologically advanced city, only the Brotherhood seemed to have been untouched by time. "Cool," Fray whispered.
Aradol smiled again. "Come on," he said. "Let's get to work."