Disclaimer: Still not mine. I really, really wish I were creative enough to think up a universe like the one Joss Whedon came up with, but I'm not. I really, really, really, wish I could make money off of this, but I can't, so this remains a purely creative exercise.
Chapter 12:
It's funny what can happen to the human brain as it is slowly deprived of oxygen and nutrients. Those that have come back from the proverbial brink have reported seeing memories from years past, or even from the last few weeks as though they were re-living them.
What are you?
April's voice from all those days ago, when she'd first arrived in San Diego, echoed in her mind.
I'm the slayer. She heard herself respond. Though she was uncertain why she was responding to a memory.
Don't lie to me. That was April's voice again. In her mind, she could see her sister holding the knife to her throat.
I'm not. I'm the Slayer.
Dee, what happened to you tonight? The scene in her mind changed. Now she saw her sister, wincing in pain as she worked to patch up the bite marks on her neck that first night after the vampire had attacked them on her doorstep.
She's just too strong.
Don't lie to me.
Dee paused before she answered, I… gave up.
Dee could never do something like that. Her mind flashed back to her sister, holding the knife at her throat.
Dee didn't have an answer for that one. Quitting really wasn't her style.
So, what happens now? The scene changed to Oz's house. April lay on the couch recovering from the knockout punch she'd received from Dee.
Now, I die.
This isn't just about you anymore, Dee. Now Oz's voice took over. She found herself seated across his desk as she informed him that she was taking the fight to Anne. That assault on this very facility had ended disastrously.
So? It's not like humanity hasn't had one hell of a run.
What about April? Oz's voice again rang in her mind.
You keep her out of this.
The slayer shows her fangs. The scene again shifted. Anne stood before her, taunting her, challenging her.
I know what you're trying to do, okay? It's not going to work. They've won, I've lost. It's that simple.
The fire, the passion, that's what's going to beat Anne. Anders sat before her, pleading with her to fight the good fight.
Then, as abruptly as the images started, they ended, and she found herself lying on the cold concrete floor, and could feel Anne slowly draining the blood from the carotid artery in her neck.
Without her realizing it, her fist slammed upwards, catching Anne under the chin. Her fangs tore free from her neck, spraying a rain of arterial blood down on the Slayer. As the Vampire recovered from it, she slammed another punch across the Vampire's jaw, driving her back.
Slowly, as if the mere act of standing took an immense effort, she stood facing the Slayer Vampire and brought her fingers to her neck. It wasn't bleeding badly, thanks largely to Slayer healing, but the bright red blood stood out like a beacon on her pale fingers.
As she looked down at the blood on her fingers, she knew.
It's in your blood. Anders voice rang out in the back of her mind.
The role of the berserker wasn't undesirable in a Slayer.
It was vital.
And in that instant, she looked deep into herself, looking deeply into the darkness of her soul, at the monster she knew was always there, and for the first time ever, she made peace with it.
She stared the monster within her in the eyes, and for the first time, turned it loose. She cut every leash and released every bit of self-control she had. In an instant, she transformed from a cool, reserved warrior to little more than an animal.
For there was one thing, only one, that Anne could not possibly predict, could not plan for and could not form a strategy around.
Chaos.
Pure, uncontrolled, unthinking chaos.
The very definition of unpredictability.
Anne had a perfectly logical reasoning mind. She could out-think just about anyone, but she could no more reason her way around unpredictability than she could reason her way out of a hurricane.
With a loud, almost feral cry of rage, Dee launched herself at the Vampire. Both feet connected in the center of Anne's chest driving her backwards. She attempted, automatically, to deflect the blow, but attempting to redirect 120 pounds of very determined muscle flying through the air was an exercise in near futility. The attack had caught her flat-footed, she couldn't twist out of the way in time. Both women fell to the ground and were back on their feet almost instantly. Dee struck with a backhanded punch at the Vampire's left cheekbone. Anne easily came up to block it, but the sheer brute force of the blow was too great. The strike broke through her guard almost effortlessly, slamming practically undefended against Anne's face. The strength of a Slayer, combined with the rage of the woman who yielded it, flung the former slayer across the room to land in an undignified sprawl.
By the time Anne had risen to a crawling position, still reeling from the blow she'd received, she received Dee's left foot generously applied to her abdomen. Not hard enough to lift her, likely by design as she immediately received Dee's right boot in the bridge of her nose with enough force to slam her back to the concrete, flat on her back. Never in her years alive as a Slayer, nor in her years dead as a Vampire could Anne remember anything having hit her that hard.
Dee was only peripherally aware of a pair of arms wrapping around her from behind and knew without looking that it had to be April. In front of her, she could see Anne trying to gather herself as Dee was, for the moment, helpless.
Dee curled her stomach, then erupted upwards slamming the back of her head brutally into the bridge of April's nose. She felt April's grip slacken and stepped forward, bringing her right elbow back to impact the newly-injured bridge of her sister's nose. She then snapped her right fist forward, slamming it directly into Anne's jaw. Both Vampire stumbled away from the berserk slayer. April's eyes clouded as they teared up; a fortunate side effect of a strike to the nose. She stalked up to the reeling redheaded Vampire, who lashed out with a hard strike to Dee's left cheekbone.
It hurt. But oddly enough the pain seemed distant. It was as if her body had simply chosen to make no notice of it. Dee swung around with the force of the blow, responding immediately with a backhanded strike across the Vampire's right cheek, followed by a left-handed punch in the same area. The Slayer wasn't using the smooth fluid techniques she'd learned. She was a whirlwind of punches and kicks. Striking directly and brutally with a strength she'd never possessed before.
She spun around snapping her left heel across Anne's right cheekbone, sending her stumbling into the wall.
Before Anne could get her bearings, trying to get her abused limbs to respond, Dee was again atop her. In an instant, she had a firm grip on Anne's red hair and pulled her forcefully away from the wall. In pain and shock, Anne had no choice but to follow. Dee drove her head, face first into the hard concrete wall. Anne felt her whole body spasm with the impact, but she was helpless to prevent the insane Slayer from pulling her back and driving her again into the wall.
Dee felt something give under her hand with a loud crack. She didn't know what it was, and she truly did not care. She pulled Anne's face again away from the wall and slammed it again into the unyielding wall. With each blow, she became more forceful, more brutal.
Finally, after more impacts than Anne retained the capacity to count, she felt herself pulled free of the wall and flung away with an effort in the same ballpark as would be reserved for the throwing away of used tissue paper. She slammed to the ground and skidded, her limbs tangling and hanging limp around her.
Through vision clouded by blood, she saw the slayer, fury behind her eyes dropping down on her, a stake in her right hand poised to drive through the Vampire's heart.
In a single motion, she brought up her hand, gripping Dee's arm at the wrist, halting the stake a few inches shy of her breastbone.
"You're gonna kill me, Dee?" The words were slurred, and almost seemed to bubble out of the Vampire's mouth as blood flowed freely from it. Her ears were bleeding profusely. The eyes looked directly into Dee's, but didn't seem to be focusing properly upon her. Dee got the eerie feeling that Anne was looking through her, not at her.
"You kill me, your sister stays as she is." Anne struggled to push the words out.
Dee was silent, her arm poised to punch a hole in the Vampire's still heart.
"You think you can live with that?"
Without responding Dee brought her left hand up in a palm strike at the Vampire's elbow. It snapped cleanly, bending in exactly the opposite direction it was meant to. Anne groaned in pain as the wooden stake slammed smoothly into the center of her chest.
As she felt her body crumble, and as each of her five senses shut off one by one, the last thing she heard was Dee's voice, stunningly calm.
"I'm learning to live with a lot of things." She whispered.
