Rating:PG-13 for now
Chapter 2 - Discoveries
"WOW. That's a big circle." Dawn stated. "Can't wait to tell my friends. They don't have a circle that big."
Dawn studied the metal ring with interest. It seemed to be composed from two parts. The inner circle had about thirty various symbols on it, which didn't resemble any language she knew. There were no symbols on the outer circle but eight similar triangular objects and she had no idea what function they could have. The label next to the whole artifact read 'Chappa-Ai, The watergate to the unknown.' There was also a smaller object next to the circle with the same symbols on it and labeled 'Control panel'.
Dawn walked towards the ring, running her fingers down the grey surface, touching the shaped symbols on the cold metal. She felt strangely drawn to it like she had something in common with the unknown object. "The future is written in the starts.", Dawn whispered, ruminating about how she got this idea. Before she had a chance to analyze her connection to the artifact, a hand on her shoulder cut off her thoughts. Dawn turned around, reacting on instinct and pushed the person behind her in his chest. It was too late when she realized it was just Xander and the force behind the push was so big he fell to the ground.
"Xander!" Dawn run to her friend, helping him to stand up. "I'm so sorry. I guess I'm still a little edgy after the battle with the First."
"I'm fine." Xander regained his footing, watching Dawn curiously. "When exactly did you get so strong? You don't happen to be one of the new activated slayers, do you ?"
Andrew heard Xander's question and switched on his recorder. "Dawn The Vampire Slayer. That sounds so cool. Like the real sunrise, Dawn brings death to the undead. Just speaking her name causes the demons to flee in terror. The Destroyer of everything inhuman in this world. The Protector of the week. The Light that defeats the Darkness. The Example of all that is good. The leader of.."
"SHUT UP!!!" both Dawn and Xander reacted in unison.
"I'm serious Dawn. You are stronger than you should be." Xander looked worried. "Perhaps Willow should run some tests to find out what's wrong.", he suggested.
----
"So what's wrong with me?" Dawn nervously questioned Willow. After they determined that she wasn't a new slayer and that Willow didn't feel anything magical in her ,except the key, which was as dormant as before, Willow ran several tests on her, testing her physical shape and Dawn was eager to find out the results.
"There is nothing wrong with you."
"Really? I want that statement documentary, cause Buffy'll never believe that I'm actually normal."
"You are not normal." Willow declared, studying the results of Dawn's tests.
"Gee.Thanks. That's incredibly improving my self-confidence." Dawn was getting more and more nervous. Where was Willow going with this?
"I said there is nothing wrong with you and I mean it. There is NOTHING wrong with you. I ran all available tests and your body is simply without flaws and I think I know the reason. When Buffy became the slayer her body and genetical structure had changed. Apart from receiving supernatural abilities, everything that could represent a problem for her as the slayer had been removed. All natural flaws her body had had vanished. The monks that created you used Buffy's DNA. That's why your body doesn't have any flaws either."
"So I'm a supergirl?" Dawn remarked, her voice a mix of sarcasm and enthusiasm.
"Sorry, but no you're not. You don't have any abilities a human couldn't have. But you have the maximum that is possible for a human. Your sight, hearing, reaction times and everything else." Willow explained.
"So I could go and win all the Olympic disciplines? That doesn't sound bad at all."Dawn started to be exited.
"Sure if you train 10 years twelve hours a day for it." Willow grinned mischievously.
"What? Didn't you say I have all possible human abilities?" Dawn frowned.
"No. I said your body doesn't have any flaws. That means you have the potential to become a world champion in any category you choose. It doesn't mean you don't have to train for it." Willow smirked. "Sorry. You're not Wonder woman."
"Oh. Well I guess I'll stick to becoming a watcher then." Dawn shrugged. "There is another problem though." Dawn remembered the ring in the warehouse. "The Chappa-Ai thingie. I felt like I had something in common with the gate. Are you sure there's nothing magical in it?"
"I couldn't feel any magical power from it." Willow replied thoughtfully. "Don't worry. We'll have plenty of time to find out."
---Two months later---
Willow was sitting in the warehouse and sighed. She didn't have a problem with most of the artifacts stored there, except two things she just wasn't able to understand and it frustrated her. One of them was an obelisk from Quortoth. It was supposed to call the forces of wind and thunder but either the incantation was wrong or it simply didn't work. Willow already called to L.A. for help from Fred and Connor. Fred had experience with other dimensions - she spend three years in Pylea and Connor grew up in Quortoth. They both were already on their way to England and hopefully they could explain how the obelisk was supposed to function. The other object she didn't understand was the mysterious watergate. Why did they even call it this way? There was no symbol of water on it at all.
Willow continued studying the symbols, recalling the last two months. They spend the most time locating and transferring the new slayers, they even persuaded few witches from the Coven to work for them as new watchers. The biggest challenge proved to be the slayers from China. Faith's escape with 40 Chinese slayers across the border with Russia was something that will be remembered. Of course Giles was not happy about the publicity. Three hundred unconscious frontier guards wasn't something the press would overlook, bur Faith's reaction was simple: It's not like we could get the slayers out of China officially.
Of course the language barrier was also a problem. Only a quarter of the newbies could speak English and they had to hire teachers from all over the world just to talk to them. All together they had 435 slayers in the age between 10 and 22 and another 24 were located but haven't been brought in yet. Nobody older then Buffy had been called. Giles thought it was because the new slayers were Buffy's successors. Willow used the Scythe to cancel the calling of girls younger then 10 years. They were too young to train and if they remained their powers they could unintentionally hurt someone.
Willow's thoughts returned to the Chappa-Ai. The Council had obviously used the gate. There was an address on the label as well as the address to Earth. In their report was written the gate led to a primitive world inhabited with humans enslaved by some snake-like demons. They even brought few of the staff weapons the demons used. After the first mission through the gate the Council decided it was too dangerous to use it and abandoned the whole project. Willow examined the weapons but didn't find anything magical about them, the weapons were based on technology that was obviously far more advanced then anything on Earth . The Council had two scientists research the gate. Each of them came with a different idea and both of these ideas seemed like nonsense to Willow. The first one thought the gate could bring people to other dimensions. It sounded almost logical. The primitive world and technologically advanced weapons had a similarity to Pylea where slavers used neckbands created in another dimension. However Willow couldn't find any of the symbols on the gate in any books about various dimensions the Council owned and they owned a lot of them. The other theory said that the gate could take you to different planets. The scientist thought that the symbols represented star constellations. Six symbols defined the destination and the seventh symbol represented the base point. There was just one problem with this theory. Actually there were several:
-If the gate was from another planet someone had to bring it here. How? Using a magical portal or a spaceship?
-The six symbols defining the destination. Connect pairs of the constellations and the point of intersection was the target. But when you have three bisectors in 3D space the bisectors may not have any points of intersection at all and if the symbols were star constellations then they mostly wouldn't. Perhaps the destination wasn't the point of intersection but the center of gravity of the six constellations. That would make more sense.
-The symbols represent star constellations. Willow checked the symbols and only some of them resembled star constellations. It was actually logical. A 3D object - star constellation displayed as 2D symbol would look different from every planet. It depends on from which angle you look at it. But she doubted that an advanced race wouldn't have realized that.
-The number of available combinations is: N!/(720(N-6)!) where N is the number of symbols. With forty symbols its 3 millions 838 thousand 380. If the system had a net of 4 million points spread over the galaxy then the average distance between two points would still be hundreds of light years. The system simply wouldn't be accurate enough.
-The seventh symbol on the gate represents the base point - a planet. That would mean each gate is different as well as the control panel. Each gate would be permanently attached to a planet. But that would make the seventh symbol a redundant information, because the base point would be the always the same.
"I guess there is only one way to find out." Willow thought. But as curious as she was, she knew it's not a good idea to open a portal to a demon world without being prepared. If the gate led to a world where the humans were enslaved by a race of demons, rescuing them wouldn't be a picnic.
----
"I don't see how this is our problem." Buffy remarked after Willow explained her the situation. "We have enough trouble in our own world. We can't save other worlds as well."
"Can't we? Cause the last time I checked there were 459 slayers which is about 458 above the average. We should at least check it out. We might be able to help those people. Also if these demons can travel between dimensions it's only a matter of time before they come here as well." Willow objected.
"Is there anyone else except me who thinks this is a bad idea?" Buffy looked around, hoping to get some support. "Come on. Faith?"
"B what happened to the 'We will help everyone who needs it.' statement?" Faith crossed her arms. "And I don't know about you but I'm damn curious what's on the other side of that thing."
"OK. But if any of you gets killed I'm gonna be pissed off." Buffy gave up the argument. Maybe Willow was right and the slayers should offer their help to other worlds, but Buffy still remembered the snake demon the mayor of Sunnydale turned into. If the demons Willow mentioned were the same kind then fighting only a few of them could cause the death of the whole slayer community. Buffy followed the rest of the gang to the warehouse, carrying the Scythe and her favorite crossbow, hoping they were strong enough to fight what was lurking on the other side of the gate.
It took them several hours to prepare the equipment and weapons they needed. Connor and Fred arrived in the meantime and immediately agreed to join them. "Seventh symbol set." Willow stated, carefully watching the inner circle rotate and the triangular socket connect with the outer ring and lighten up. After it she pushed the orange button in the middle of the control panel. In the beginning nothing seemed to happen but then a whirl of water emerged from the gate. Everybody stepped back and stared at a vertical water level establishing in the circle. "Wow. Now I get why they called it a watergate." Willow remarked. When she didn't feel any danger from the ring, she slowly walked forward to the water, waving to the others to follow her.
"The first explorers of the unknown." Andrew recorded as each member of the small group disappeared in the gate. "Whatever may be waiting for them, they are ready to face it. We can only guess what thoughts now occupy the mind of these brave girls. This event might change the history of our planet. A small step for a slayer, a giant leap in the fight against evil."
End Chapter
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