Notes: Diclaimers in Part one.
Just as promised, and perhaps a few hours late, the latest update!
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The morgue attendants lay dead on the floor.
Better clean that up, thought John Patience.
Patience liked to do his work neatly; clean up the mess, no blood traces – not even a DNA strand to pick up. He did it well, which is why Wolfram & Hart sent him to take out many of its major 'inconveniences'.
However, this was the first time he was instructed to take out a body.
"Job's already done, I don't get it," piped a voice beside him.
It was also the first time he was instructed to take a W&H lawyer with him on the job.
"Shutup," he muttered.
The lawyer, a snivelly-looking, overpaid creature in Armani called Lawrence, curled his lip at the assassin. "Do you have any idea-"
"I don't. And I don't care. What I care is that you're making enough racket to get us both noticed. So shut up before I decide to use this axe against you."
Lawrence had enough brain power to flinch.
Good, Patience thought.
He studied the corpse on the trolley before him. It looked like an ordinary corpse – no fang marks, so not a vamp-to-be. Died of a bad stab wound at the side. What the heck is so special about it?
Well, he wasn't paid to wonder.
"Ms Morgan said that we have to make sure the corpse is totally dismembered and if possible, grinded."
Patience glared at Lawrence again. "Don't make me repeat myself," he growled.
Lawrence just stood up straighter.
He lifted his axe to-
"Hey, do you smell something?"
Patience was about to turn, tell him that 'of course there's a smell, it's a damn morgue' when the smell hit him too.
It was acrid and sulphuric. And it was coming from the-
He didn't finish his thought.
* * * * *
For a gathering of a thousand or more Aman-yar, Avarice was surprisingly deserted.
"What did you expect, tour busses?" Lorne muttered out loud.
Unfortunately, his voice carried sharply in the empty warehouse, causing the others – Angel, Gunn, Fred, Cordelia, Giles and Willow – to turn around in surprise.
"Sorry," Lorne said self-consciously.
Something was up, and they all knew it. They've followed Wesley's detailed diagrams and have ended up here, the supposed epicentre of the meeting. But there was no one around.
Angel told them to stay sharp. But he didn't want to admit his fear that they could've read the map wrong. Giles, however, cut him to the chase and told them that he couldn't be wrong about the map. This was the place.
That didn't make him feel any better because they were being lured in a trap – or was probably already in one.
Meanwhile, Gunn and Fred were wiring the place with explosives. They had decided to split up – classic horror movie cliché, and always a bad idea, but they had no choice.
"Anything?" Willow asked.
Giles looked warily around the empty warehouse. "How do a thousand people hide themselves?"
"I've checked the place for invisibility spells … I don't detect anything," she said.
Suddenly, they heard a startled scream.
"That sounded like Lorne!"
Giles and Willow ran towards the direction of the sound, but before they could reach it, a body came flying across their path and landed heavily on a stack of boxes.
"Gunn!" Willow cried out in shock. But not letting that distract her, Willow armed herself with magic, preparing to nix the culprit.
No one was there.
"Fred? Angel?" she called out.
Giles cast her a worried look. Could the Aman-yar have gotten to them so fast?
The movement came so fast he didn't register it until he landed heavily on the floor ten feet away. Winded, Giles looked up blearily, only to be met with a blow to his chin. His vision blurred, his glasses broken, Giles could only gasp and struggle vainly to get up.
Willow instinctively struck out at the invisible being, and for a moment, she could make out a human shape lighted by her blast. It didn't even flinch as it raised an arm to strike her.
She avoided the blow easily, but the figure moved so quickly that she could not avoid the second blow. It threw her fifteen feet away and she landed with a heavy thud on a wall, to slide down bonelessly to her floor.
Before her vision faded, she saw the figure rematerialise. A young woman, about her age, smiled at her.
Then everything went black.
* * *
"Welcome back. You weren't such a challenge, were you?"
Angel blinked to clear her vision. Cindy stood before him, all blonde and angelic, wearing a pink floral dress. When his vision cleared some more, he realised that a number of people were standing behind her.
An elderly woman, in her forties, wearing a business suit. A teenage girl, about Dawn's age, chewing on a bubble gum wearing a hipster and a baby-T. A grandfatherly man smoking a pipe. A fashionable woman, wearing a tank top and a mini skirt. The Aman-yar, empty human shells, vessels to one demon.
"Hello Amopholas," he gritted out.
Cindy raised an eyebrow. "Well, aren't you smart," she said derisively. "But I don't think you discovered it all by yourself. I bet it is the Watcher, isn't it? Rupert Giles?"
He heard a sound to his right. A furtive glance and he saw Giles coming to. He realised then that they were in a cage of some sort. Giles was the only one among the group that was coming around. The rest were slumped around the cage, unconscious.
"How do you like my children, vampire?" the teenage girl asked. She walked towards him, holding the bars of the cage seductively as she pouted. "I come in many shapes and sizes … and now, thanks to the Mother … I have more than human vessels."
To prove her point, she started bending the bars she held just a little bit.
Giles stumbled beside Angel, his eyes widening. "You have used the Mother."
"You're too late," came the grandfatherly man. "But that is not what we're after … ultimately."
Cindy smiled wide. "I think it's time for me to come home," she said, her blue eyes sparkling.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Fire. An Element that filled ancient man with wonder. It was worshipped, used as a tool for life, a tool for death, and a tool of suffering. It was not good. Neither was it evil. But its purpose had always been the same: to purify, be it for good reasons or bad.
The Elementals existed at the birth of the world. They were there – raw power without will or desire. They were the Guardians who kept the world in balance. But in times of peril, they are Awakened, and chose to inhabit a human vessel to carry out its mission, whatever it is. For the human is the only creature that could give it will and personality; its soul ensures that.
Now the Elemental of Green Fire is the strongest of them all; too strong, some say – because it inevitably drives its vessel to madness. It is not a good thing to be a vessel to such power.
Only twice has the Elemental of Green Fire taken form; first, Ayas, who was worshipped for her awesome power, and who in turn destroyed the civilisation which she came from.
The second time the Elemental of Green Fire appeared, it took the form of someone I knew – and I suppose it is something every scholar desired; a legend coming alive before them. Unfortunately, I did not find the experience at all enjoyable.
The second time the Elemental of Green Fire appeared, it inhabited in the body of a young boy in the Southern part of England. His name was Wesley. It hid in him for a time, thwarted for a brief while by the interference of men – but it came out nevertheless, when Wesley was 35.
It empowered him. It drove him mad. It eventually killed him.
And enslaved his soul.
- From the journals of Rupert Giles
Alanna fought as long as she could, but the vampires were too strong for her. Screaming what would probably be her last scream, Alanna then braced for the end.
But the vampires were suddenly distracted.
"Hey! We're being watched," snarled one.
The vampires turned as one to see a lone figure standing in the alley. Alanna took that moment to try escape, but the vampires anticipated her; one of them grabbed her by the neck and pinned her to the wall.
She could only watch her end rushing towards her.
Honestly, Gondo was having a bad day. He hadn't had a meal for more than seven hours; the worse was having to share that lone catch with the other two losers – Josh and Bob. Then while they're about to have her, they were interrupted by some bozo who decided to come and watch.
The figure stood in the alley, seemingly undisturbed by the spectacle.
"Beat it! Or else you're next!" Josh snapped.
Gondo gave him a disbelieving look. Chase away a meal? Dumb and slow.
To make sure that the quarry was human, Gondo sniffed. And was taken aback. There was something wrong with the guy – human, yeah, but the smell of blood was wrong. Rancid. Like it has gone bad. And he did not hear a heart beat, so the guy's obviously no longer alive.
But he wasn't a vampire either. He could sense that immediately.
"Zombie?" Bob asked. He was quicker than Josh by light years.
At that, the girl squealed in horror.
"Beat it! I'm in no mood to deal with walking dead men now, get it!" Josh yelled.
"Just ignore him, Josh! Zombie's are dumb, slow things. Probably wants the girl. Fresh meat and all. Ever since that stupid vamp hunter came to Avarice, humans have been hard to come by."
The girl squealed some more.
Then the zombie did something unexpected. It moved.
But its movements were unnatural – not the slow, lumbering gait of the zombie – it was super-fast, jerky, as if their eyes couldn't process the movements fast enough, only allowing them glimpses of the creature. As a result, the zombie looked as if he was appearing and disappearing in places, its head whirling at impossible speeds.
Voices whispered around them. Disjointed, ghostly …
**What is that? Where are they? Vampires. Filth. I'm dead.**
The girl screamed in earnest this time. Josh was so shocked by the zombie that he didn't bother to muffle her this time.
Then in another millisecond, the zombie was before him. It floated in the air, hair floating wildly about it, stirred by an unnatural wind. And Josh noticed something else – an incredible heat rising from the body.
Another spasm of movement, a quick whirl of the head and the face turned towards him.
Josh yelled in shock.
It was the vampire hunter. The one that had been hunting the vampire population in Avarice mercilessly the past few months. But he looked dead. Milky blue eyes stared at him, his skin was grey blue and so were his lips. Hell, he *is* dead.
Josh had heard about the vamp hunter. Saw him in action once. That he was some kinda sorcerer with fire starting powers or something. He thought they were all bull. What he saw was great gymnastics with the bow and arrow that's all.
The girl screamed again, her eyes wide and staring, when she saw the zombie's face.
He didn't think they were bull now.
At the sound, the vampire hunter looked at the girl, his eyes glowing green.
Numbed by fear, Josh let the girl go, backing away.
"Hey man … okay, we're letting her go."
**Don't hurt her! Filth. Destroy. It's time to gather. Time to purify. Let me go**
The voices came again – one pleading, another emotionless and raw with power.
Josh had only a moment to realise that Bob and Gondo were strangely silent. He realised that they were beside him – as ashes.
He didn't have time to scream as the Elemental reached out with blinding speed to decapitate him with a lightning-speed movement of his hand.
As Josh's head flew in the air, the Elemental shifted its gaze towards the girl, who sat slumped on the dirty alley floor in horror.
It dismissed her presence as unimportant, and turned away.
Alanna could only manage a croak when the dead man burst into flames the colour of fluorescent green. With a burst of sound, the creature disappeared from her sight, as if it was never there.
* * *
The Elemental only cared that its mission was accomplished. A dead vessel did not stop it – it only needed to trap the soul in the body to reappear again, to have the mind necessary to accomplish its mission.
But the soul was terrified, more terrified that it ever have been in its short corporeal life. At the moment when it was time for it to leave its dead body, the Elemental had reappeared, dragging it back into its dead body, forcing it to experience the sensation of a rotting body, of cold, congealed blood, of breathless lungs and an unbeating heart. It had recoiled in horror, writhed violently to escape the Elemental's grasp, but the Elemental did not care – it did not have ability to care or empathise - for the mission was more important.
The soul, in essence, was just pure energy, a mysterious force that powered a human vessel. Its reasoning, personality and the importance of Wesley's memories had faded away with its death. Now, it is more like a being with only one purpose: to escape.
The Elemental ignored it and increased its speed. It ran on the streets on Avarice, a blinding blur of green fire which infected the neighbouring buildings with flame.
The Gathering is near. The time is too close. We have wasted too much time already.
Along the way, it was distracted by the denizens of the night that had crept out of the darkness to escape the flames. Without wasting a beat, it moved with blinding speed to kill them all – a sharp look sent a vampire burning from within into dust; a quick snap of a hand decapitated a demon it didn't bother to identify; a sharp blow to the chest impaled another- they were all dead in less than a minute.
And it flew across Avarice, waging a streak of violence in its path, destroying the filth it was summoned to destroy – all without losing sight of its original purpose: to destroy the Aman-yar.
___________________________________-
A reader wrote to me and said that it has been a year since I started New All Over. Happy anniversary! And I could only think: OMG, has it been *that* long?? It makes me realise how lucky I am that you guys have stuck by me all this while waiting patiently for my updates! Thanks everyone! :) I am very pleased to report that the next chapter will be the last, and then comes the shorter story, "New Being". What it means, is ... well you gotta read it. :O) I promise you guys that it'll end well; well, as well as Joshverse could allow. "New Being" will be quieter on the action scale; more intorspection, people. ;)
Until then,
Wyndhamfan.
Just as promised, and perhaps a few hours late, the latest update!
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The morgue attendants lay dead on the floor.
Better clean that up, thought John Patience.
Patience liked to do his work neatly; clean up the mess, no blood traces – not even a DNA strand to pick up. He did it well, which is why Wolfram & Hart sent him to take out many of its major 'inconveniences'.
However, this was the first time he was instructed to take out a body.
"Job's already done, I don't get it," piped a voice beside him.
It was also the first time he was instructed to take a W&H lawyer with him on the job.
"Shutup," he muttered.
The lawyer, a snivelly-looking, overpaid creature in Armani called Lawrence, curled his lip at the assassin. "Do you have any idea-"
"I don't. And I don't care. What I care is that you're making enough racket to get us both noticed. So shut up before I decide to use this axe against you."
Lawrence had enough brain power to flinch.
Good, Patience thought.
He studied the corpse on the trolley before him. It looked like an ordinary corpse – no fang marks, so not a vamp-to-be. Died of a bad stab wound at the side. What the heck is so special about it?
Well, he wasn't paid to wonder.
"Ms Morgan said that we have to make sure the corpse is totally dismembered and if possible, grinded."
Patience glared at Lawrence again. "Don't make me repeat myself," he growled.
Lawrence just stood up straighter.
He lifted his axe to-
"Hey, do you smell something?"
Patience was about to turn, tell him that 'of course there's a smell, it's a damn morgue' when the smell hit him too.
It was acrid and sulphuric. And it was coming from the-
He didn't finish his thought.
* * * * *
For a gathering of a thousand or more Aman-yar, Avarice was surprisingly deserted.
"What did you expect, tour busses?" Lorne muttered out loud.
Unfortunately, his voice carried sharply in the empty warehouse, causing the others – Angel, Gunn, Fred, Cordelia, Giles and Willow – to turn around in surprise.
"Sorry," Lorne said self-consciously.
Something was up, and they all knew it. They've followed Wesley's detailed diagrams and have ended up here, the supposed epicentre of the meeting. But there was no one around.
Angel told them to stay sharp. But he didn't want to admit his fear that they could've read the map wrong. Giles, however, cut him to the chase and told them that he couldn't be wrong about the map. This was the place.
That didn't make him feel any better because they were being lured in a trap – or was probably already in one.
Meanwhile, Gunn and Fred were wiring the place with explosives. They had decided to split up – classic horror movie cliché, and always a bad idea, but they had no choice.
"Anything?" Willow asked.
Giles looked warily around the empty warehouse. "How do a thousand people hide themselves?"
"I've checked the place for invisibility spells … I don't detect anything," she said.
Suddenly, they heard a startled scream.
"That sounded like Lorne!"
Giles and Willow ran towards the direction of the sound, but before they could reach it, a body came flying across their path and landed heavily on a stack of boxes.
"Gunn!" Willow cried out in shock. But not letting that distract her, Willow armed herself with magic, preparing to nix the culprit.
No one was there.
"Fred? Angel?" she called out.
Giles cast her a worried look. Could the Aman-yar have gotten to them so fast?
The movement came so fast he didn't register it until he landed heavily on the floor ten feet away. Winded, Giles looked up blearily, only to be met with a blow to his chin. His vision blurred, his glasses broken, Giles could only gasp and struggle vainly to get up.
Willow instinctively struck out at the invisible being, and for a moment, she could make out a human shape lighted by her blast. It didn't even flinch as it raised an arm to strike her.
She avoided the blow easily, but the figure moved so quickly that she could not avoid the second blow. It threw her fifteen feet away and she landed with a heavy thud on a wall, to slide down bonelessly to her floor.
Before her vision faded, she saw the figure rematerialise. A young woman, about her age, smiled at her.
Then everything went black.
* * *
"Welcome back. You weren't such a challenge, were you?"
Angel blinked to clear her vision. Cindy stood before him, all blonde and angelic, wearing a pink floral dress. When his vision cleared some more, he realised that a number of people were standing behind her.
An elderly woman, in her forties, wearing a business suit. A teenage girl, about Dawn's age, chewing on a bubble gum wearing a hipster and a baby-T. A grandfatherly man smoking a pipe. A fashionable woman, wearing a tank top and a mini skirt. The Aman-yar, empty human shells, vessels to one demon.
"Hello Amopholas," he gritted out.
Cindy raised an eyebrow. "Well, aren't you smart," she said derisively. "But I don't think you discovered it all by yourself. I bet it is the Watcher, isn't it? Rupert Giles?"
He heard a sound to his right. A furtive glance and he saw Giles coming to. He realised then that they were in a cage of some sort. Giles was the only one among the group that was coming around. The rest were slumped around the cage, unconscious.
"How do you like my children, vampire?" the teenage girl asked. She walked towards him, holding the bars of the cage seductively as she pouted. "I come in many shapes and sizes … and now, thanks to the Mother … I have more than human vessels."
To prove her point, she started bending the bars she held just a little bit.
Giles stumbled beside Angel, his eyes widening. "You have used the Mother."
"You're too late," came the grandfatherly man. "But that is not what we're after … ultimately."
Cindy smiled wide. "I think it's time for me to come home," she said, her blue eyes sparkling.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Fire. An Element that filled ancient man with wonder. It was worshipped, used as a tool for life, a tool for death, and a tool of suffering. It was not good. Neither was it evil. But its purpose had always been the same: to purify, be it for good reasons or bad.
The Elementals existed at the birth of the world. They were there – raw power without will or desire. They were the Guardians who kept the world in balance. But in times of peril, they are Awakened, and chose to inhabit a human vessel to carry out its mission, whatever it is. For the human is the only creature that could give it will and personality; its soul ensures that.
Now the Elemental of Green Fire is the strongest of them all; too strong, some say – because it inevitably drives its vessel to madness. It is not a good thing to be a vessel to such power.
Only twice has the Elemental of Green Fire taken form; first, Ayas, who was worshipped for her awesome power, and who in turn destroyed the civilisation which she came from.
The second time the Elemental of Green Fire appeared, it took the form of someone I knew – and I suppose it is something every scholar desired; a legend coming alive before them. Unfortunately, I did not find the experience at all enjoyable.
The second time the Elemental of Green Fire appeared, it inhabited in the body of a young boy in the Southern part of England. His name was Wesley. It hid in him for a time, thwarted for a brief while by the interference of men – but it came out nevertheless, when Wesley was 35.
It empowered him. It drove him mad. It eventually killed him.
And enslaved his soul.
- From the journals of Rupert Giles
Alanna fought as long as she could, but the vampires were too strong for her. Screaming what would probably be her last scream, Alanna then braced for the end.
But the vampires were suddenly distracted.
"Hey! We're being watched," snarled one.
The vampires turned as one to see a lone figure standing in the alley. Alanna took that moment to try escape, but the vampires anticipated her; one of them grabbed her by the neck and pinned her to the wall.
She could only watch her end rushing towards her.
Honestly, Gondo was having a bad day. He hadn't had a meal for more than seven hours; the worse was having to share that lone catch with the other two losers – Josh and Bob. Then while they're about to have her, they were interrupted by some bozo who decided to come and watch.
The figure stood in the alley, seemingly undisturbed by the spectacle.
"Beat it! Or else you're next!" Josh snapped.
Gondo gave him a disbelieving look. Chase away a meal? Dumb and slow.
To make sure that the quarry was human, Gondo sniffed. And was taken aback. There was something wrong with the guy – human, yeah, but the smell of blood was wrong. Rancid. Like it has gone bad. And he did not hear a heart beat, so the guy's obviously no longer alive.
But he wasn't a vampire either. He could sense that immediately.
"Zombie?" Bob asked. He was quicker than Josh by light years.
At that, the girl squealed in horror.
"Beat it! I'm in no mood to deal with walking dead men now, get it!" Josh yelled.
"Just ignore him, Josh! Zombie's are dumb, slow things. Probably wants the girl. Fresh meat and all. Ever since that stupid vamp hunter came to Avarice, humans have been hard to come by."
The girl squealed some more.
Then the zombie did something unexpected. It moved.
But its movements were unnatural – not the slow, lumbering gait of the zombie – it was super-fast, jerky, as if their eyes couldn't process the movements fast enough, only allowing them glimpses of the creature. As a result, the zombie looked as if he was appearing and disappearing in places, its head whirling at impossible speeds.
Voices whispered around them. Disjointed, ghostly …
**What is that? Where are they? Vampires. Filth. I'm dead.**
The girl screamed in earnest this time. Josh was so shocked by the zombie that he didn't bother to muffle her this time.
Then in another millisecond, the zombie was before him. It floated in the air, hair floating wildly about it, stirred by an unnatural wind. And Josh noticed something else – an incredible heat rising from the body.
Another spasm of movement, a quick whirl of the head and the face turned towards him.
Josh yelled in shock.
It was the vampire hunter. The one that had been hunting the vampire population in Avarice mercilessly the past few months. But he looked dead. Milky blue eyes stared at him, his skin was grey blue and so were his lips. Hell, he *is* dead.
Josh had heard about the vamp hunter. Saw him in action once. That he was some kinda sorcerer with fire starting powers or something. He thought they were all bull. What he saw was great gymnastics with the bow and arrow that's all.
The girl screamed again, her eyes wide and staring, when she saw the zombie's face.
He didn't think they were bull now.
At the sound, the vampire hunter looked at the girl, his eyes glowing green.
Numbed by fear, Josh let the girl go, backing away.
"Hey man … okay, we're letting her go."
**Don't hurt her! Filth. Destroy. It's time to gather. Time to purify. Let me go**
The voices came again – one pleading, another emotionless and raw with power.
Josh had only a moment to realise that Bob and Gondo were strangely silent. He realised that they were beside him – as ashes.
He didn't have time to scream as the Elemental reached out with blinding speed to decapitate him with a lightning-speed movement of his hand.
As Josh's head flew in the air, the Elemental shifted its gaze towards the girl, who sat slumped on the dirty alley floor in horror.
It dismissed her presence as unimportant, and turned away.
Alanna could only manage a croak when the dead man burst into flames the colour of fluorescent green. With a burst of sound, the creature disappeared from her sight, as if it was never there.
* * *
The Elemental only cared that its mission was accomplished. A dead vessel did not stop it – it only needed to trap the soul in the body to reappear again, to have the mind necessary to accomplish its mission.
But the soul was terrified, more terrified that it ever have been in its short corporeal life. At the moment when it was time for it to leave its dead body, the Elemental had reappeared, dragging it back into its dead body, forcing it to experience the sensation of a rotting body, of cold, congealed blood, of breathless lungs and an unbeating heart. It had recoiled in horror, writhed violently to escape the Elemental's grasp, but the Elemental did not care – it did not have ability to care or empathise - for the mission was more important.
The soul, in essence, was just pure energy, a mysterious force that powered a human vessel. Its reasoning, personality and the importance of Wesley's memories had faded away with its death. Now, it is more like a being with only one purpose: to escape.
The Elemental ignored it and increased its speed. It ran on the streets on Avarice, a blinding blur of green fire which infected the neighbouring buildings with flame.
The Gathering is near. The time is too close. We have wasted too much time already.
Along the way, it was distracted by the denizens of the night that had crept out of the darkness to escape the flames. Without wasting a beat, it moved with blinding speed to kill them all – a sharp look sent a vampire burning from within into dust; a quick snap of a hand decapitated a demon it didn't bother to identify; a sharp blow to the chest impaled another- they were all dead in less than a minute.
And it flew across Avarice, waging a streak of violence in its path, destroying the filth it was summoned to destroy – all without losing sight of its original purpose: to destroy the Aman-yar.
___________________________________-
A reader wrote to me and said that it has been a year since I started New All Over. Happy anniversary! And I could only think: OMG, has it been *that* long?? It makes me realise how lucky I am that you guys have stuck by me all this while waiting patiently for my updates! Thanks everyone! :) I am very pleased to report that the next chapter will be the last, and then comes the shorter story, "New Being". What it means, is ... well you gotta read it. :O) I promise you guys that it'll end well; well, as well as Joshverse could allow. "New Being" will be quieter on the action scale; more intorspection, people. ;)
Until then,
Wyndhamfan.