Part 3
(No) Killer Instinct

Planet Phenias
The Mundagoon Complex
Anne's room

The wall was covered in drawings. Hours had gone by since Spike had entered Anne's room for the first time and now he stood in front of the wall proudly - unaware of the fact that his face was smudged with various colors - and pointed towards the very first drawing.

"Now, let's start from the beginning. You are....," he trailed off.

"A slayer," she looked at the drawing representing herself. A girl diminutive in stature, with blond hair and - this seemed strange to her - green eyes and a piece of chopped wood in one hand.

"And a slayer is?" he asked looking down at her. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor on a colored pillow.

"An individual with unnatural strength, stamina and regenerative capacities above the standard Homo sapiens level. Naturally developing only in the feminine gender, it can be artificially induced to the masculine one as well," Anne immediately answered. It was one of the definitions that had been inserted in her memory while her body had still been inside the growth inducer.

"No, no, not like that," Spike protested. "Like this," he put on his best Giles-impression: "In every generation there is a chosen one. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness. She is the slayer. Okay?"

"Okay," Anne nodded and registered his words.

"Now, the story goes like this. There was once a slayer named Buffy. She lived on the hellmouth in Sunnydale with her mum and little sister Dawn," he pointed at various drawings on the wall as he spoke.

"Uh, and Giles!" Anne interfered enthusiastically pointing towards a drawing she had particularly liked. She had this strange feeling whenever she looked at it. As if it - that clumsy picture of a man in a tweed costume with glasses on his nose and an ever present book in his hand - reminded her of something very important, something nice and calm. Something funny and an awkward feeling she couldn't place. She was given no definition of love.

"I'm getting there," Spike assured her as he went on: "She went to highschool there and the librarian just happened to also be her watcher, Giles," Anne clapped her hands together like a child at this comment. "There she met Willow, this sweet shy teenage girl. Sure later she was a little scary for a while, but that passed. Willow was best friends with..."

"Xander!" Anne answered quickly.

"Yeah, Xander. The goofy one," he said smiling. "And then there was Cordelia. It took her a while to come to - she was a regular bi...uhm, not so nice person at first - but eventually she turned out to be quite a woman. So I've been told anyway. Me and her never really had much interaction." He sighed before going on: "Then there was Angel. He was an evil vampire at first then a gypsy curse gave him his soul back. He...," he bit back any nasty comments he might have been tempted to make. It was no use to talk badly of the dead. "Buffy fell in love with him and they had this long - really long - complicated relationship which ended when he left for LA, but that's a whole other story. So, all of them," he gestured towards the drawings he had been pointing at before, "fought the forces of darkness together. Vampires, demons and such. Not many of those left these days though." There was a moment of silence. The long years - too many, way too many - seemed to suddenly all weigh heavily on Spike's heart. For a moment, he smirked, he had forgotten all about it. About the nightmares, the people that had passed away, slowly, one by one. Those he had loved, those he had hated, both of which he now terribly missed. For a moment he had been there again. Sunnydale. Buffy staring at him with gorgeous blue eyes. Buffy, in front of him. Buffy, somewhere far away and dying. Buffy, in his arms.

"I know you, don't I?" confusion was written over Anne's features.

"Hmm?" he snapped out of his reverie.

"I know you," she repeated. "Don't I?"

"Maybe. In another lifetime, luv," he said smiling bitterly.

"When was that?" she asked tilting her head slightly.

"A long long time ago. When Sunnydale was still there. When Earth was still all there," he turned back towards the wall of drawings. "That's me right there," he touched a drawing of himself without the tattoo covering half his face, with his old leather jacket.

"Spike," she said slowly, looking at him strangely. She couldn't understand what was happening to him. She didn't know why it suddenly all seemed too hard for him and why he was sad. Sadness, another word not defined in her vocabulary.

"And Anya and Andrew," he chuckled. "The most annoying bloke you could ever meet. And Tara..."

"Where are they now? All of them?" she asked her gaze passing over all the drawings covering the wall in front of her.

"They...," he trailed off. What was he suppose to say to this girl staring at him with a big smile on her face, excitedly awaiting for the end of a fairytale? "They lived happily ever after."

"Happily ever after," she repeated, her smile seeming to widen as she looked back up at the small blond girl with green eyes who - she was sure - was looking right back at her.

Niya's cell

"You think I could see her?" she made a wide gesture with her free hand. "Anne or whatever they call her."

"I don't know if that's such a good idea," Dollorian said as he cut another piece of apple and gave it to her. "I doubt the doctors would agree. They'll think you won't be able to behave yourself."

"Oh, come on," she frowned as she put the piece of apple in her mouth and began chewing it. "I could've choked you to death at least ten times since you freed my hand, but I didn't."

"And I believe that's mainly because you were hungry," Dollorian replied smiling. "You'd probably try to kill her."

"I don't have to be in the same room with her...," Niya offered. "I'm just curious to see how she looks. That's all. She's suppose to be the spitting imagine of the greatest slayer that ever lived. And plus she was my ancestor. You gotta admit that's something to be curious about."

"I'll ask them," Dollorian promised as he handed her the last piece of apple and stood up.

"You think you could at least leave this arm free?" she asked before taking a bite out of the piece of apple.

"No, I can't. It's not really up to me and even if it were...I still don't trust you," Dollorian let her know before walking out of the room as one of the assistants entered to tie her back down to the bed. Niya smiled amused.

The Planet Corrian
Headquarters of the Slayer Liberation Army

Cincineel's chambers

She stared at the ceiling as the light of the three moons of the planet Corrian shone in through the windows left wide open. Silken curtains moved under the touch of the midnight breeze. On the planet Phenias, she supposed, it was morning already. Here, it was barely midnight. What an odd thing fate was - she smiled - of all the slayers, from all the universes, it had to have been her. That one. She frowned when she heard the door cracking open. A figure advanced through the darkness of her chamber.

"I didn't send for you," she said, her eyes not even wondering towards the man that had entered her room. She knew exactly who it was.

"I know," he stopped a foot away from the bed. Cincineel was laying on the edge of the bed, her pillow cast aside and her sheets barely covering her.

"Tell me something, Thomas, do you think that you are in some privileged because I'm sleeping with you?" she asked not rising from the bed to greet her unwelcomed guest.

"I don't demand privilege," he said biting his lip.

"Good," she smiled. "I don't want you to get ideas - illusions - into your head. I am what I am and you are still nothing. I don't have to remind you what happened to Neal, do I?"

"Of course not," he bowed his head slightly. "I was just concerned for you. Am I allowed to feel that?" he asked with a forced smile on his lips.

"I don't dictate what you feel, Thomas, though it would be so much easier if I could," she said rising to a sitting position. She sighed before asking: "So what exactly are you worried about?"

"This whole situation. That...thing you hired to kill the clone," he admitted.

"That thing has a name and I didn't hire her, I bred her," a thin smile crossed her lips.

"Something everyone here seems to be clueless to or at least refusing to discuss or believe," Thomas pointed out.

"What happens behind closed doors, stays behind closed doors," Cincineel replied. "Precisely why no one knows about my little experiment. Except you. Call it the privilege of being my..."

"Erinya, what kind of name is that anyway?" he intentionally interrupted her.

"Are you ashamed of what you are, Thomas?" she asked rising to her feet and closing in on him.

"No," he answered dryly.

"Good," she was dangerously invading his private space. She was naked, her covers disregarded on the floor somewhere. "Because I'm certainly not embarrassed by it," deep green eyes stared into Thomas's gray ones. The next moment they were kissing.

Planet Phenias
The Mundagoon Complex

"Doctor Cohegen!" Dollorian yelled after him and the geneticist stopped in his tracks waiting for him to catch up with him.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" Haydn asked him when he was finally at his side.

"It's Niya. She wants to see Anne," he told him.

"And what on earth made you think I'd even consider that absurd request?" the doctor asked amused.

"She said she just wants to see her. She doesn't have to be in the same room with her," Dollorian explained. "That made me think the request was less ridiculous."

"Well," he pondered his words for a few moments. "I'll think about it."

"I'll let her know," Dollorian said and he was about to turn around when it hit him with all its force. A tsunami-size spasm that rocked his body from head to toe. He fell to the floor almost instantly while his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he screamed in pain.

"Get a medical team down to corridor H218 immediately!" the doctor requested through his transmitter as he crouched down next to the shaking slayer. "Dollorian, I need you not to panic mentally, it will only speed the process and the toxins will reach your brain faster. Focus on a point. Any point right in front of you. Don't think of anything else."

As Dollorian breathed heavily and tried hard to concentrate on a point, a doctor and two assistants came rushing in with a levitating gurney and slowly lifted him onto it. The doctor began quickly examining him while Haydn watched from the side.

"What happened?" the doctor asked him and Haydn shrugged:

"One moment he was fine, the next he was convulsing on the floor."

"How long since the conditioning was administered to him? You were the one who contacted him, right?" the doctor asked as he used a device to check on Dollorian's quickening pulse.

"I think it was 5 years ago, but he was labeled as a hazard around five months ago by the Slayer Liberation army," Haydn explained.

"Then there's nothing we can do about it," the doctor said looking up from the device he had been staring at.

"I promised him we would look into the conditioning and prolong his life," Haydn said frowning. "You're saying that's impossible?"

"Pretty much," he sighed. "The slayer conditioning for the male genome is flawed simply because the male genome is not female. It never assimilates a 100%. No matter how well a body accepts the conditioning it will never last a life time. My best guess is 20 years tops." The doctor turned towards one of the assistants. "Prepare a shot of CremlanD7. It should calm his muscles and slow the spasms down."

"So there's nothing you can do?" Haydn asked.

"To prolong his life? No," he shook his head. "But we can ease his pain. There's an experimental drug that's suppose to eliminate all pain and side effects of the conditioning. Convulsions, dizziness, vision loss, uncontrollable shaking, loss of equilibrium..."

"All gone?" Haydn asked impressed as the doctor gave Dollorian his shot. "And it doesn't postpone death?"

"No. It basically makes his body ignore its own inner decay. He'll feel absolutely fine until one morning when he won't wake up anymore," the doctor said as Dollorian's body stopped shaking, the slayer falling into a deep sleep.

"When he wakes up, tell him you're working on an antidote to his condition," doctor Cohegen said in a commanding voice. "In two days you'll call him into your office and you'll tell him you found it. Make up some name for it and give him the drug you told me about. He'll feel fine and you'll tell him he is fine, no matter what his tests show. It's absolutely crucial he doesn't know that he's dying and we can't do anything about it, you understand?"

"Of course," the doctor nodded as he gestured towards the two assistants to take Dollorian to the hospital wing. He saluted Haydn respectably before following them. Left alone, doctor Cohegen continued towards his office as he had initially intended. To his surprise, he found Spike there.

"How's Anne?" he asked the vampire.

"Sleeping," Spike said looking up at him.

"So what's your opinion?" the geneticist asked curious. "As an expert. I mean you've met the real Buffy Summers. Does Anne rise to her level?"

"She's a bit different. And I don't mean just the eyes," the vampire told him. "But you can't expect her to be the same. It's been a thousand years for god's sake. She does have her spark though, her smile, her...," an expression of reverie crossed the vampire's features. "It's like she's...a bloody second Buffy Summers!"

"Fourth," Haydn corrected him.

"Huh?" Spike asked confused.

"She's the fourth Buffy Summers. There were two more experiments before Anne. One failed in the embryo stage while the second began showing horrible mutations during the fetus stage and we were forced to terminate it," he explained.

"Second, fourth, whatever. The point is she looks just like her, acts like her sometimes, has the same gestures, doesn't quite talk like her - though that's mostly because of all the garbage you put in her mind," he eyed the doctor as he spoke.

"You consider our experiment to be successful then?" he seemed pleased.

"She's no experiment, but if you're asking whether she's a living breathing copy of Buffy Summers, then yeah she is," Spike nodded.

"Excellent," Haydn smiled. "Then we can move on to the next stage. Though I do want you to see her on a daily basis. I think it will help her a great deal to have someone familiar around her."

"Next stage?" Spike asked rising his eyebrows surprised.

"Of course. We're not only breeding someone your nostalgia can feed on, Spike, we're breeding a military leader," he reminded him as he gestured for him to follow him out of his office. Speaking in his transmitter he said: "Prepare the cage."

"You're not putting her in a bloody cage!" Spike protested.

"It's not for her," Ersnt assured him as the vampire realized they were heading towards Anne's room and that they weren't the only ones going in that direction, but they didn't enter her room, but one just beside hers. He entered curiously inside and immediately realized what was going to happen. The large chamber was decorated like - an ancient by now - training room. Next to one of the walls a cage had been brought and inside it was a snarling gigantic creature. A Kevdon demon. An endangered species in this dimension. All thanks to the slayer crusades that had plagued the Earth and the known universe.

"Bring her in," doctor Cohegen told two assistants. The men opened a door that lead to Anne's room and disappeared for a few moments. Spike felt nervous about the whole situation. A very sleepy Anne entered, rubbing her eyes and yawning, after the two assistants that were sent to fetch her.

"What's going on?" she asked tiredly seeing the large public that was gathered in the room. She had gotten used to the presence of all the doctors.

"Anne, it's time to test your instincts," Haydn said coming closer to her as Anne looked frightened at the cage she had just spotted behind him. "You don't have to be scared. It's in your blood."

As the assistants moved to open the cage, Spike wanted to stop them, but a firm hand on his shoulder prevented him from advancing.

"It's going to be fine," the doctor that had stopped him told him. "We just want to see if she has the right instincts. She won't be in any real danger. If her slayer powers won't help her, doctor Cohegen fed her every known martial arts form humanity has ever known. She's a walking killing machine." Spike relaxed considerably after hearing those words.

As soon as the cage was open the demon threw the assistants out of the way and stalked towards Anne threateningly while the doctors hid behind an unbreakable glass case. Spike refused to join them, preferring to stay outside in case Anne needed his help. The slayer looked at the demon horrified as she backed away towards the wall.

"Doctor Cohegen?" she looked helpless over at Haydn behind the glass case, but the doctor didn't answer her calling. "Spike?" she turned her head towards the vampire.

"Relax, luv, you'll do fine," he assured her. The demon smacked Anne across the face sending her flying into the glass case. She scrambled to her feet and helplessly tried to open the door to her room, but she couldn't do it. "Fight him!" the vampire encouraged her with his fists clenched. The demon caught up with Anne again and threw her to the floor and began pounding her with his large fists. Still, she did nothing. Spike couldn't take it anymore and launched himself at the demon grabbing him by the shoulders and pulling him off Anne. It was easy for him with all his years of experience fighting just this sort of creature to take him out. In a few moments the demon was laying on the floor unconscious. Anne, with tears in her eyes, stood up shaking as Spike dragged the demon towards her. He looked at her and gestured towards the demon:

"Snap his neck," he told her, but Anne didn't seem to understand or didn't want to. "Kill him. Cohegen won't be pleased by this, that much I can tell you," he whispered. "And if things keep going like this, soon he'll be talking about terminating the experiment. Just show them you got it. I know you do. I promise I'll get you out of here as soon as I can figure out how. Come on, Anne."

"But...I don't want to," Anne shook her head taking a few steps backwards. "I don't want to!" she screamed this time and knocking down the door to her room, she ran inside. Spike closed his eyes and muttering a 'damn it' snapped the demon's neck. Haydn Cohegen looked on disapprovingly from behind the glass case.

End Part 3