Part 5

Supersoldier

The Mundagoon Complex

Anne's room

She was sleeping in his arms. Like so many times before, like in so many of his haunting dreams. At that moment - in the present, in the now - in his arms. In this future that sometimes appeared to be nothing but a nightmare he had to awaken to each day in order to be able to sleep again and reenter the real world. The world where Sunnydale still stood tall and LA was not burnt to the ground and the greatest people he had had the opportunity to meet continued to live on. Forever. Eternal. But not the painful eternity he was subjected to, but eternal like only heroes can be. Unchanged, unphased, statues of a now crumbled world. The greatest slayer of all times and her scoobies, the most annoying over-gelled vampire - but at the same time the only real vampire hero the world was able to produce - and his angst filled posy.

No, he corrected himself mentally, the woman in his arms was not her. Not the woman he had known and loved. Not her. She was a copy. A good copy he had to admit, but a copy nonetheless. A pretty, naive girl with big blue eyes engineered for a purpose she did not understand. A pawn in a universal game.

A thud from the hallway disturbed his wandering thoughts and he looked at the closed door with a frown. Anne seemed to pick up on the sound as well as big sleepy blue eyes stared up at him questioningly. He caressed her hair lovingly in a comforting manner that assured her everything was all right. But everything was not okay. The door swung open and men dressed in military uniforms entered the room, aligning themselves in front of the door as a superior officer made his appearance.

The officer - a general, Spike realized by the decorations on his uniform - looked around the room with a disapproving frown before settling his gaze on him and Anne. He tilted his head to look at him with a sort of curious glance - vampires were so rare! - before turning towards the soldiers.

"Take her," he ordered and the men approached Spike and Anne. Anne, now awake, cowered in the vampire's arms, while an alarmed Spike tried to shield her in his arms. An electric weapon quickly rendered him unconscious as Anne was dragged away by the soldiers. As he fell into a deep sleep, he could vaguely hear a distant scream - or was it an echo?

"Spike!!!!!!" someone yelled, but he couldn't help that someone as his body was numb. He had been hit with a thousand volts of electricity. Anne struggled as she was carried away from the room, but her attempts to escape her captors were weak and futile. She was carried into a cubicle room with a small window, an iron bed with a too thin mattress and a small metal locker that was perched up on the wall. As the door was closed and bolted behind her, Anne looked around the room uneasy. She hated the small space, the hard bed, the ugly metal. Hated being alone, without the comfort of knowing that behind the room's walls people constantly made sure she was okay. She should have killed, she thought as she gathered her body in the middle of the military bed. She should have just let them have what they wanted. Tears formed in her eyes and despair, unlike anything she had ever felt, took over her heart and mind - the sort of sorrow only children can suffer so intently, of being unjustly punished or broken into doing things they did not want.

"But I don't want to kill anyone," she murmured as the tears slid down her face. No one could hear her. No one was interested in knowing what she did or did not want.

Niya's cell

"Did you know about this?" Dollorian asked as he entered the cell and held out a picture of an obscure figure in front of her.

"What? That black dots would mysteriously appear on your pictures?" she asked with a smile.

"Don't play games with me," Dollorian said in a serious tone. "The doctors are really pissed about this. Who is she?" there was a long paused in which Niya analyzed the walls as if they held the secrets of life itself. "Who is she?" he asked again holding the picture closer to her face as if it could determine her to speak. "Some hired assassin? Some suicidal supremacist slayer?"

"No and...uhhh, no, I guess," she shrugged.

"So you do know who she is," he realized pulling the picture away.

"Maybe," Niya smiled.

"Don't make this hard on yourself," Dollorian warned her. "I might not be too keen on torturing you, but there are a lot of slayer haters out there that are just waiting for a signal to do horrible things to you."

"Oh, how intimidating," she said with a smirk.

"This isn't the time to play the cocky slayer, damn it!" he let out frowning. "I know you all have this whole...untouchable façade you like to display for the whole world to see, but guess what? Right now you're not all that untouchable, Niya."

"Go to hell, Dollorian," she said with a disgusted look.

"Not before you tell me who this woman is," he gestured towards the picture.

"Cincineel decided to breed her when she heard of the little experiment the doctors wanted to conduct here," Niya said after a while. "She never told me if she had a name in mind for her."

"But what exactly is she?" Dollorian asked a little taken aback by the explanation. He was expecting her to be some famous mercenary or something similar.

"Not what," she shook her head. "Who," she corrected him.

"So who is it?" he asked expectantly after she didn't continue her phrase.

"I don't know," she lifted her shoulders. "I never had a chance to see her, remember? Cincineel was very discreet about her plan. I was her right hand and I only vaguely knew what it was about."

"Was she born...made, when we left Corrian?" he asked knowing there were hundreds of thousands of possibilities to who exactly this woman could be.

"I don't know, I told you Cincineel divulged very little about her," Niya reminded him. "She did however seem definite that her creation would be able to take down any version of Buffy Summers the doctors here could create."

"Why?" he asked suspiciously.

"Something about a slayer bred by humans never being as good as one made by slayers," Niya shrugged.

"That's just Cincineel's discriminating bullshit," Dollorian brushed it off.

"Is it?" Niya asked with a smile. "Then how come your slayer failed to kill a demon even when its life was offered to her?"

"Who told you that?" Dollorian asked suspiciously.

"I have ways of finding out," Niya said with a mysterious smile. "Besides, did you think I wouldn't notice the morale going downhill around here after a failure like that?"

"It was a miscalculation, that's all," Dollorian said defensively. "They've made the proper adjustments and I assure you Anne will not fail them again."

"How watcher-like of them," Niya smirked.

"Watcher-what?" he asked confused.

"Watcher-like," she repeated. "You know, in the old days before the cleansing of the planet Earth and the slayer-boom there were those old men who watched over the chosen ones...haven't you read any of the ancient scrolls? You are a slayer!"

"I did read them. Actually one of my forefathers was a watcher," he explained.

"Really?" the slayer asked surprised.

"Yes and if things hadn't changed the way they did maybe I would've been a watcher today instead of a slayer," Dollorian said pensively.

"Or maybe you wouldn't exist and the entire race of man would be decimated," she gave her opinion.

"Perhaps, but maybe then slayers wouldn't want to do the decimation themselves as they do now," he pointed out.

"You'd prefer not to exist rather than have to deal with this war of our species?" she asked incredulously.

"Yes and I would gladly die now if it put an end to this unnatural struggle," he nodded. "Man should not fight man."

"There is nothing else left to fight," Niya said staring at him intently. "Our history, the kind that was written for the whole world to see and read, is only made of greedy men fighting other greedy men for power and riches. You're a dreamer and a fool, Dollorian, the world you're imagining does not exist. Do you really think that if we are defeated – the superior race – it will end there? It will not. There will always be another struggle between men. Maybe not as defining as this one, but there will be others."

"You called me stupid before when I told you they were going to find a way to cure me," Dollorian said with a victorious smile. "Well they found it. I'm healthy now. I haven't felt this good in ages," he tapped himself on the chest. "And if this dream of mine came true maybe, just maybe, peace and understanding is not too much to ask for."

"What did they give you?" Niya asked frowning.

"You wouldn't know about it. It's brand new. Freshly discovered by the doctors. For me," he said smirking.

"Stop being such an idiot!" she suddenly yelled at him standing up in her bed and struggling against her restrains. "Do you really think they care about you? They have a war to plan, for god's sake! Whatever they gave you is probably just some fancy painkiller with an invented name! Don't be blind, Dollorian," she said breathing heavily as she gave up on trying to free herself and threw herself back on the pillows and closed her eyes. "One race will die in this war. One way or another. Neither the slayers nor the humans can afford the threat of having another species around. And if their plan succeeds, if this Anne will lead the Human Council's army into battle and win, do you really think they'll have much use for you then or her for that matter? You'll die like the rest of us, if you're lucky in battle, if not killed by the hands of the people you claim are here to help you now. If this is the path you've chosen, fine, but all I ask of you is to not be blind..."

Dollorian stared at her disturbed for a moment before backing away from her and leaving the room in a hurry without saying a word.

Haydn Cohegen's office

"What the bloody hell have you done?" Spike asked bursting into Cohegen's office, still a little woozy from the electric shock. "Where is she?!"

"Calm down," Haydn told him not even looking up from the files he was examining.

"You can be calm all by your bloody self, I want to see Anne," he told him annoyed.

"You can't," the doctor simply said and a furious Spike took the files he was studying from his hands and threw them against the opposite wall and banged his fists on Haydn's desk, leaving an impression on its metal surface.

"Do you really want another incentive?" Cohegen asked him as two guards appeared in his doorway holding electric weapons. Spike stared at them uneasily, recalling the prickling feeling of electricity running through his body. "Sit down," the doctor told him and gestured for the two guards to leave. The two men nodded and exited the office. "We had to make some changes concerning Anne."

"You didn't kill her did you?" he asked horrified.

"No, we transferred her to a different environment," Haydn explained.

"What kind of environment?" the vampire asked suspiciously.

"The kind that will stimulate her more primal senses," the doctor said. "She will be trained by military personnel from now on. You will still be allowed to see her, but only once every two days."

"That sounds reasonable," Spike's anger suddenly melted away.

"I'm glad you approve," Haydn said with a nod. "You have to understand she was not made for your enjoyment, but for a crucial purpose. She will be either our doom or our salvation."

"Of course," the vampire understood and stood up from the chair. "Just the same, I would've liked to have been told before so I wouldn't get this worked up about it."

"It was my decision not to tell you. I feared that you would react violently. I misjudged you and I apologize for that," Haydn admitted.

"Maybe I would've reacted violently a few millennias ago. But let's just say I've grown wiser in time," Spike said with a smirk. He headed for the door just as doctor Domner entered the office. When the vampire was gone, Domner asked:

"How did he take it?"

"Surprisingly well," Haydn answered him. "I guess even vampires become soft with time."

Niya's cell

Spike entered the cell and sat himself down opposite the slayer that observed him with curiosity. Two millennias ago, the vampire thought amused, they would've been battling each other in graveyards, hunting each other. He looked her over and definitely saw a vague resemblance of the Summers line. Something in the countenance, in her look, the way her hair fell on her back. Very small things, but they were proof that Niya was indeed a descendant of the greatest of slayers.

"What do you want?" Niya eventually spoke when she saw he didn't.

"I was curious to see how you looked," he said staring around the room to see where the cameras were hidden. There were four, one in each corner of the room.

"Well, ta-da," she said with a smirk. "Actually, I was pretty curious to see you too. You're a legend."

"That isn't worth much these days," he pointed out.

"You're practically part of an extinct species and you've lived through everything that's brought your kind to this turning point," she continued. She stared at him in silence for a moment then blinked twice and added: "Truth be told I was more curious to see Anne."

"Truth be told, I was more curious to see her too," Spike admitted.

"Have they already moved her?" she asked and the vampire was taken by surprise. "I'm well informed," she explained. "Come here, I want to tell you something private," he gestured for him to near her.

"How do I know that's not some trick of yours to try and kill me? I've seen slayers kill vampires with their bare hands before," he looked at her suspiciously.

"You don't," Niya said with a smile. Spike hesitated for a moment before leaning over to her. "There's a 30 second time loss every 5 hours on the cameras. Whatever you have to say, you can say it then." She pulled away and chuckled.

"That's...," he put on a shocked façade. "More than I wanted to know."

"Good," Niya chuckled. "I always wondered how it was for our ancestors...fighting all those horrid creatures by themselves."

"It was hard," Spike told her.

"But it must've been fun too," Niya said with a smile. "Being a slayer without anything to slay is boring. You feel incomplete. Like something's missing."

"That's why you're trying to kill humans now, luv," the vampire pointed out. "You can't just put aside slayer instincts."

"Say what you have to say," Niya suddenly said eyeing the cameras.

"Help me take Anne out of here," Spike said not skipping a beat.

"I'm a little tied up at the moment," she gestured towards her restrains.

"I'll free you, somehow," he told her in a rush. "Is there anyone else here I can trust?"

"Dollorian's weak, but you can manipulate him, just show him that there is no cure for male slayers," she said fast.

"There isn't," Spike stated confused.

"Precisely," Niya nodded.

"Anyone else?"

"There is someone, the person that's been feeding me information and that sabotaged the project, I think it's one of...," she suddenly started laughing. "You actually did that?"

"Yes, in the Middle of Times Square," he immediately caught on. The 30 second window had ended. "Well, I have to go, but I'll come visit you again," he told her getting up.

"You do that. I, unlike others, have all the time in the world," she said with a meaningful look.

Spike left the room and headed down the corridor. He hadn't lied to Cohegen when he had told him he had grown wiser in time, but not in the direction the doctor had probably understood. He had learnt that a quick violent reaction was most of the time unsuccessful and that a good sneaky plan was unbeatable.

Anne's training facility

"Is that all you got?" the general yelled as he paced in front of an exhausted Anne who had been under a hellish physical program since her removal from her room that morning. Her arms hurt, her legs hurt, her entire body was numb. Her arms trembled as she tried to do yet another push up, they failed her however and she fell face down on the floor. "What's this? Did I tell you, you could rest?"

"No," Anne murmured as her eyes half-closed.

"What's that?" the general screamed in her ear as he lowered himself to her level.

"No, sir," she let out louder this time. She wanted to sleep. Badly needed to rest and wash and simply not move.

"Get up," he ordered her. Anne didn't move. "Get up," the general repeated and poked her body with the tip of his boot. Anne slowly – too slowly – got up. "You know what your problem is, soldier? You have no determination, no respect and have no idea whatsoever what discipline is."

"Discipline, a term used to define a person's capacity to...," Anne started repeating one of the definitions that had been put inside her mind.

"Silence!" the general looked at her frowning and she instantly stopped speaking. He turned towards the two soldiers that had been present there during the training as guards and told them: "I'm sorry, boys, I'm afraid you'll have to skip dinner. We'll be here all night."

"But...," Anne protested with the tinniest of voices. She felt like crying. Tears formed in her eyes, but she didn't dare shed them.

"You're a slayer, let's see how far your superstrength can take you. Twenty laps around the facility. And I better not see you stop," he shoved her towards the massive training facility's wall and Anne started running along it. She couldn't feel her body anymore, it was so sore and she just needed to rest. Just for a moment. A second. A heartbeat. Her eyes closed and she collapsed on the ground. The general shook his head: "I was promised a supersoldier, but this," he gestured disgusted towards Anne laying on the floor. "This is nothing but a weak specimen."

End Part 5