Anasatsuken 3
"I'm telling you we need to find my friend Giles!" Cordelia cried. "He'll know what's going on and what to do!"
"Is he like your friend Willow?" Chun-Li asked trying very hard to keep her composure.
"You are Willow!"
"Look, young lady," Chun-Li said, "I don't have time to meet with your imaginary friends. There are real people in danger that need my help."
"Hey, lady, I'm not the one being delusional. That's you… 'Chun-Li'."
"I didn't tell you my name so you can spit it out with such disdain, Ms. Chase!" Chun-Li snapped.
The two stopped on the shoulder of the street to glare at each other. Cordelia's pestering over the last half-hour to see this Rupert Giles and her nasty attitude was getting on her nerves. Even Cammy wasn't as bad as this girl!
Cordelia's inhaled sharply, but then to Chun-Li's surprise the young woman swallowed her retort.
"Okay, fine," Cordelia said. "You're all protect and serve, I get that, but believe me when I say if we talk to Rupert Giles, a real person, he might be able to make all this craziness go away for good. We can save everybody all at once."
Chun-Li let her own anger recede and mulled over what Cordelia said. She guessed if Cordelia, an opinionated and bossy person by all accounts, could put aside her pride to try and make a point then Chun-Li should give that point consideration. "How can one man stop so many monsters from terrorizing the city?" she asked.
Cordelia raised her arms out to her sides and said, "Well, look around! I know Sunnydale isn't Mayberry on a good night, but this kind of stuff doesn't happen unless some really screwed magic is involved!"
"Magic?"
"I'm not crazy," Cordelia declared warningly.
"Oh, I know certain supernatural forces exist," Chun-Li assured the young woman. "Okay, so how will Mr. Giles reverse the magic?"
Cordelia shrugged. "His whole deal is about stopping this kind of stuff."
Chun-Li thought on the other woman's words, while Cordelia impatiently tapped the toe of her right heel against the asphalt. "Okay," Chun-Li finally said, "we will see your friend. Perhaps it is wiser to find a way to stop the trouble at its source than by piecemeal."
"Finally!" Cordelia smiled smugly and said, "Now, you can follow me. If I know Giles, he's probably lurking around the school library right now. The man has no life."
"Didn't you say his life was dedicated to fighting evil?"
"That's his job, but he spends every waking moment he's not fighting the forces of darkness, " Cordelia rolled her eyes, "fondling books. I don't know how anyone can consider that a life."
Ten minutes later, the two women reached Sunnydale High School. They hadn't encountered any more magical costumed freaks, as Cordelia put it, on their way there. Cordelia led them around the main building to the rear entrance of the library. The teenager tried the door and discovered it barred.
"Stand back," Chun-Li said and kicked the metal door in with a powerful high kick.
Cordelia wasn't impressed.
"What is it with you Little-Miss-likes-to-fights-a-lots? Huh? I mean we coulda' just knocked!"
"Time is important now," Chun-Li mumbled weakly in her own defense, careful not to look the teenager in the eye.
Cordelia favored her with a crooked smirk. "Yeah, right."
It was then that an outraged older man wearing wire rimmed glasses and a gray three-piece suit appeared in the doorway. "What on Earth is going on here!" he exclaimed staring at the crumpled metal door hanging on its bottom hinge.
"I'm sorry, let me see if I understand this," Rupert Giles asked the two girls standing in front of him. One dressed in a terribly indecent Spandex body suit, and the other dressed in a fine blue Asian garment and white boots. "This isn't Willow Rosenberg, but an agent of Interpol?"
Willow crossed her arms over her chest and frowned at him. For a brief moment Giles felt he should apologize for being rude. That look of disapproval on Willow's face reminded him of his mum after he'd mucked up some thing or another. Then he remembered the girls were putting him on and intensified his skeptical demeanor.
"That's what I'm telling ya, everyone has become their costumes," Cordelia said rubbing her temples with her fingers. "Willow thinks she's Chun-Li."
"Be that as it may, it should be quite obvious to even her she is not an Asian woman," Giles said dryly. Then before either girl could respond, Giles looked Willow in the eye and said in considerably flawed Chinese, "Wo bu hui jiang zhong wen, uh, chu ci jian mian qing duo guan zhao. Ni shi cong na li lai de?"
Willow gave him a Mona Lisa smile and said, "I've heard worse, Mr. Giles. And I hope I will be able to say the same of you one day."
Giles snatched his glasses from his face. "My word! You understood me!" he exclaimed.
"It took some doing," Willow said, her smile blossoming into a teasing grin.
"Okay, now that we're all on the same wave length, can we get with the world saving?" Cordelia asked, bored with the whole show and tell.
Giles replaced his glasses and cleared his throat. "Y-Yes, right. Start from the beginning… Wait… where is Buffy?"
"I haven't seen her since school let out, but I'm guessing she's probably not doing so good out there. Unlike Willow, she didn't wear a Street Fighter costume."
"Street Fighter?" Willow muttered.
"What did she dress as?" Giles asked, terror gripping his heart at the possibility his Slayer was out there completely helpless.
"Oh, it was a really nice dress! We're talking Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons, nice." Cordelia shook her head sadly. "Figures the one time Buffy shows taste--"
"Cordelia! Quickly, everything you know!"
"There's not much more to tell."
"I'd say there is, like how is it you haven't transformed into your costume?"
"I was wondering the same thing," Willow said.
"Maybe the spell couldn't turn me into a real cat," Cordelia suggested.
Willow (or should he call her Chun-Li?) shook her head. "The magic being used can change a human being into an animal form from what I've seen. Or at least something closely resembling to the costume's design."
Cordelia looked at the other girl with surprise. "So you believe you're Willow now?"
"I do not," Willow said, though she didn't sound so certain.
Giles began pacing in front of the girls, and said, "Maybe it's the costumes themselves that are hexed. Where did you buy your, ah, outfit, Cordelia?"
"Party Barn."
Giles turned to Willow. "And you and Buffy?"
Willow pressed her lips together tightly and exhaled noisily through her nose, the look she'd given Giles earlier had nothing on the look of tried patience she possessed now.
"Er, right. Cordelia do you know where they bought them?"
"Right, like I have clue one about Sunnydale's retail hell!"
"Cordelia."
"Okay, okay, I saw your little freak squad at a new place. It was called Ethan's.
Ethan… he wouldn't dare. Not in the Slayer's backyard. Not in mine.
"Mr. Giles? Is something wrong?" Willow asked.
A grim set on his face, Giles shook his head. "Of course not. Cordelia, take me to Ethan's."
What the bloody hell is he doing? Spike wanted to know. The Slayer's groupie was tearing into his forces like the Slayer herself. The power behind his hits and their speed amazed Spike. It's that karate getup he has on, Spike thought. It changed him into some kind of martial artist. A master of his discipline it seemed, but Spike couldn't place what form the boy was using. And he'd been around a long time and seen just about every fighting style in existence. Prudently, Spike backed away from the melee and watched. He'd need to study the kid's moves a bit.
So far, as far as Spike could tell, the only mistake the boy made was not carrying something to dust the vampires with after he smacked them around. Then Spike remembered the boy was a goody two shoes, which meant he wouldn't kill some poor, unlucky brat who decided to wear the wrong costume tonight. Even without a stake, the kid was still doing a competent job of hurting his enemies, despite being outnumbered and out-powered.
Another thing Spike noticed was the lack of fear the kid showed. He didn't even smell afraid. Spike smelled adrenaline and sweat, and something else… something Spike could only call excitement.
The boy blocked two punches from two of the vampires, pushed their arms away with his forearms then crouched low and delivered two blows of his own, shoving his fists into the vampires' stomachs. Then he swept their legs out from under them and quickly moved on to the other two vamps before the first two hit the ground. He bowed his back to evade a spinning back kick from one, rose up and clocked the other who jumped at him. Next, he blocked the first vamp's follow up kick with the elbow of the same arm he used to punch the second. With a quick motion the kid caught the vamp's leg below the kneecap, stepped forward and kneed him in the groin.
Needless to say the vamp went down clutching his danglies. By then, the boy re-engaged the first two vampires' whose legs he swept. They had come up from behind, their claws raised but the kid stepped back and elbowed both in the chest. Spike clearly heard their ribs snapping. Then the boy back-flipped over them, his hands gripping their shoulders as he arched over them. He bent his knees as he came down and drove them into the vampires' backs, their spines cracking under the force of the strikes. The kid let them drop bonelessly to the asphalt—they wouldn't be getting up for awhile.
That last move from the boy gave the other two vamps pause and they looked to Spike for orders… or so he thought. Spike cursed; he realized it wasn't a course of action they wanted, but his help.
Spike was tempted to make the blighters fend for themselves, but how would that look? He killed two Slayers for cryin' out loud! Now he's gonna run from a scrawny little rent boy like the Slayer's lap dog? Hell, no! Spike swaggered forward, the vamps backed off and the boy faced him.
"You been working out, mate?" Spike asked, smiling cockily, stopping a few feet from the boy. Noting his white Karate costume was damp with sweat, but not nearly as much sweat as Spike would have liked to see. The kid wasn't even breathing very hard for someone who'd fought off four vampires. It didn't matter only two of them were real; they were as strong and as durable as the real thing.
The loose strings of boy's red headband and the fabric of his getup waved in an unexpected wind, but he remained absolutely still. His facial features, his arms, legs, hands and bare feet seemed to be in stasis. Even his eyes showed a quiescent focus—focus on Spike, and Spike alone.
It was unnerving. By now it was obvious to Spike he'd been wrong-headed to think of the Slayer's friend as the same boy he'd met during his reunion with his sire. Of course the boy probably wasn't a boy at all at the moment. He was exactly what that blooming gi made him. Which was one great ass-kicker looking to kick ass—someone that loved doing it by the smell of 'em.
I knew it was a bad idea to go running about town tonight. Should be relaxing back at the warehouse and sharing a warm virgin with Dru. Bugger.
"So, I was wondering," Spike started, "since those kids you came to save took off, let's say me and my mates go our way and you go yours, 'ey?"
The boy, or whoever he was, placed one foot in front of the other then twisted on the balls of his feet so his right shoulder faced forward. Next he let his back leg slide back a little more and bent his legs. Then, finally, he brought his arms up so his fists hovered under his chin briefly before he extended his right arm out in front of him.
"I see," Spike said. I go looking for a helpless, sniveling Slayer and find Bruce-bloody-Lee instead.
They faced off for nearly five minutes, neither one attacking. The minions who deferred to Spike were long gone. And the vamps the kid gimped were slowly regaining use of their bodies.
Spike impatiently bounced around like a boxer in a ring, while the boy exuded a frightening amount of tranquility, standing completely still. Spike couldn't take the waiting and attacked first. Going in hard, swinging punches as fast as he could to shake off the near catatonia he slipped into waiting for the boy to do something. The kid blocked with his arms, his muscles tensed hard to absorb the impact of Spike's fist. He countered with a roundhouse, which Spike bobbed under. The boy relentlessly followed up by throwing an uppercut at Spike's face and Spike dodged that, too. The boy was fast, but Spike was confident it was nothing he couldn't handle. Just had to wear him down.
He saw an opening in the boy's defenses and delivered a fast jab to the boy's side, causing him to grunt and pivot away to keep out of Spike's reach. The boy clutched his side with his right arm while holding out his left, his eyes ablaze with pain and anger. Spike was glaring himself, he'd been positive that blow would've crippled the kid. Cracked some ribs at least. Spike charged in and sent a front lunge kick at the boy who spun out of the way, brought up his left elbow and battered it against Spike's shoulder blade. Spike gritted his teeth and backhanded the boy's face. The boy went flying and landed hard on the cracked and pot-holed asphalt, tumbling wildly across the black top before coming to a rest some ten feet away.
Spike caught up with him in a blur of motion, the boy was half way to his feet when Spike grabbed the front of his gi with one hand and hauled him up. Spike buried his fist in the boy's gut twice before he set about pummeling him in the face. Spike's advantage didn't last more than a few moments before the kid grabbed the arm Spike used to hold him up and threw himself backwards. Planting his feet in Spike's middle the boy waited until his back hit the ground before he let go of Spike's arm and kicked out. The fabric of the boy's gi tore out of Spike's hand as he went hurdling almost fifteen feet straight up into the air.
Spike let out a cry when he started to fall, but cut it off when he saw that the boy had rolled to his feet, his bruised face turned upwards. His eyes, for a second, flashed red.
"Oh, sh—"
"Shouryuu Ken!" the boy shouted, and the next thing Spike saw was a fist coming to meet his face.
The vampire endured a full on rising punch; he stared at Ryu with pure hatred through swollen, blood-shot eyes. It… enraged Ryu that the creature survived the Shouryuu Ken. The rage burned inside him, all too familiar, all too unwanted… yet irresistible.
"I don't know what the hell you are, but I'm gonna make you and a pair pruning shears real close friends. Right after I'm done beating the snot out of you!"
The vampire would recover from his injuries soon and Ryu no longer had the physical strength to kill him with his bare hands. Ryu knew he had one option left. It was certain to destroy his opponent once and for all.
"You… are nothing! I will defeat you," Ryu said, his lips spread across his face, exposing his teeth which had become as deformed as the vampires. His eyes began burning like red-hot coals as he cupped his hands, placing the left above the right, palms inward, before pulling them against his right side.
"What the…!" the vampire said, the snarl on his face transforming to a look of surprise.
"I will defeat you," Ryu roared.
Ryu began gathering energy from around him, and from within, into the space between his palms. Thin bolts of crimson lightening danced over his body as his muscles swelled with energy. Soon the arcs of electricity grew as well, their oscillation over Ryu speeding up. A wind encircled him, tossing up loose gravel, glass and dust that layered the parking lot. The vampire's yellow eyes widened even more at the sight before they began darting desperately from side to side. Ryu sensed the creature's fear and his mad grin grew, his facial features becoming distorted, his skin darkening to an orange tint. He prepared to alter the direction of his attack should the vampire run.
"Now wait-wait a minute, mate," the vampire said thrusting his hands out in front of him.
"Hadou--" Ryu pulled his hands back farther until they were almost behind his back. A brilliant well of blood red energy formed into a ball between his cupped hands. Both the lightening and the demonic wind surrounding him merged together and swirled as one before they too joined the energy he held in his hands.
"No fair using magic, is it?" the vampire asked.
"Ken!" Ryu shouted and thrust his hands forward. It was at that moment, half way across town, Giles, with Chun-Li looking on, smashed the magical idol fueling the spell cast over the citizens of Sunnydale.
Xander Harris watched the fireball he almost launched at Spike break apart into little sparks of energy. Diffusing into the air like dying fireflies flitting through the night air. In that moment Xander only knew loss, loss so heart-rending he fell to his knees and bit into his bottom lip to hold back his sobs. He didn't register Spike walking cautiously over to him, ready to take full advantage of his dazed state. He did not notice when Buffy, the real Buffy, chased the vampire away. Nor did he hear the agonized wails coming from the vampire and the fifteen-year old boy lying on the ground behind him. Xander was aware of only one thing: he touched heaven. Only to have it ripped away from his fingertips.