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The End of the Circus: A Tale of the Yizibajohei
Shipgirl Short Stories: Taffy Three Returns: No SlayerFest Here, Boys!
By Fred Herriot
Based on characters and situations from The Seventh Carrier, created by Peter Albano; Katekyō Hitman Reborn, created by Amano Akira; Azumanga Daiō, created by Azuma Kiyohiko; Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, created by Seth Grahame-Smith; Kantai Collection, created by Kadokawa Games; Worm, created by John C. McCrae; Harry Potter, created by Joanna K. Rowling; Urusei Yatsura and Ranma 1/2, created by Takahashi Rumiko; normalman, created by Jim Valentino; Buffy the Vampire Slayer, created by Joss Whedon; and Stargate SG-1, created by Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner.
Also including characters and situations from Urusei Yatsura — The Senior Year, created by Mike Smith and Fred Herriot.
Sunnydale, the former residence of Natalie French at J Street and Ninth Avenue overlooking Rosedale Cemetery, the final Friday of October in 2012, an hour after suppertime (Tōkyō time: The final Saturday, an hour before lunch)...
"YOU DID WHAT, COYA?!" Buffy Summers shrieked out. "THE DARK GAOL?!"
The woman born as Coya Yupanqui in 1530 — two years prior to the start of the conquest of her home empire by the hated Spaniards under the command of Francisco Pizarro González — took a deep breath before she crossed her arms. "I have my reasons, Mistress," the Volcanic Handmaiden of the Dark Gaol declared.
"Oh, there BETTER be good reasons for this!" the Mighty Maid of the Mountains stated, crossing her arms.
As the other teenage members of the Scooby Gang seated on nearby couches and chairs — they now joined by four American and two Japanese shipgirls — watched this confrontation between the team leader and one of the two new girls who joined the group the previous fall, the native of what today was Cusco in Peru held up her hand, allowing a magical image to appear. As Buffy recoiled on seeing her beloved Liam O'Connor along with William Pratt and Drusilla Keeble tied against a softly glowing onyx black wall of crystals while ruby energy flowed in and out of the struggling vampires, Coya added, "Being as I am one of my Master's handmaidens since our first lives fighting the lar'beke five sagas ago..." — here, the Peruvian sorceress/living avatar to an ancient Yizibajohei volcano deity grinned on seeing the shipgirls (save a calmly meditating Brenda Laffey) perk on hearing of the Goa'uld — "...I'm fully aware of where the less lethal parts of the Dark Gaol actually are within the Great Crystal."
"Holy Moley! There are 'less lethal' parts of the Dark Gaol?!" Xander Harris wryly asked.
As Faith Lehane laughed while playfully bopping the Wild Scavenger of the Plains on the side of his head, Coya smirked. "Aye, Xander, there are! My Master and my peers did not ALWAYS kill those who angered our past selves as we did to Anubis' fools!" As the shipgirls moaned on remembering the partially-ascended Goa'uld System Lord who personally attracted the wrath of the second Healer of Destruction due to what he did to himself to overcome her during the War of the Second Great Banishment, Coya allowed the image to magnify to show Angelus in a close-up. On seeing him scream while tears flowed down his cheeks, Buffy winced before she smiled her thanks as Hayashi Kanami squeezed her shoulder in support. "Right now, spells I unleashed on Master Liam, Master William and Mistress Drusilla are passing through their souls, forcing them to confront all the horrors they were made to unleash by their turnings on normal people. Yes, this is what those fool Roma spectacularly FAILED to do all those years ago when they caught Master Liam, but this will definitely help all three of them grow the necessary internal strength necessary to drive out the so-called 'demonic' influences on their hearts and recover once they're properly pre-Gifted."
"It was your plan all along to help Liam become one of us, Buffy," the Untameable One then added, making Buffy blush at that reminder from the transplanted native of Nerima. "Bill and Dru deserve the same treatment, just like every other vampire we've run into since well before I came into this sewer pit of a town! 'Sides, don't you remember the Dragoness' spell?"
That made the elder Slayer moan again. "Yeah, yeah, Kanami! Yizibajohei can't mate with non-Yizibajohei! I know, I know!"
"Besides, it's a miracle to me that Uncle Jed didn't order Margo to come into town to hunt down Liam in the first place after that 'curse' got broken on New Years Day," Tara Maclay added as she squeezed her lover's hand. "Yeah, he's done a ton of good as 'Angel', but Uncle Jed was told about what he and his siress did back in 1871 when they ran into Uncle Abe in Chicago."
"The C-in-C's only got so much patience, Admiral Summers," Jenn McLeod Murphy warned, she crossing her arms. The reborn USS Murphy of the Benson-class fleet destroyers, she had lost the front third of her hull in a collision in 1943 just outside New York City. It had been enough for Yvonne Swanson to see her salvaged and Gifted — even with the surviving two-thirds of her hull having been scrapped in 1972 — as the Amphibious Engineer of the Lënapehòkink, Murphy. The only combat warship-turned-shipgirl to be an officer in the United States Army — her namesake formed an engineer regiment in the Empire State in the Civil War, thus guaranteeing the Army Corps of Engineers would claim her before the Navy did — she had the silver oak leaves of her rank as lieutenant colonel on her collars on red fields trimmed in white, the colours of her other-self's service while with the land forces. Her uniform was red overall, with silver belt and boots, her hull number 603 on her upper thighs as her older sister wore hers on her light blue battlesuit pants; her ship's crest had a mixture of USACE and USN insignia marking her namesake's unique career in uniform from 1841 to 1864. "Like Admiral Maclay said, Mister O'Connor's done loads of good. He deserves a chance, as does Miss Keeble and Mister Pratt. Still, from what E told us when she briefed us on the goings-on in this place, it could have got a TON worse after that curse wore off until Admiral Lehane chased him out of the city limits proper."
"And we found him and his pals at a site where they could use the damn tunnels underground to get back into town if they weren't so scared of Faith," Kanami added before she smiled as Akiyama Tokina came over with some welcome tea for the red-haired boy-turned-girl martial art prodigy. While the American members of the Scooby Gang moaned on being reminded of the crap they hadn't really focused on underground since they came together two years ago, she added, "Sure, Willow's and Tara's spells blinding him to your Giftings worked like charms so he didn't probe too deep into what you've done to vampires you've caught since you went to war on them, so there's no worry in case friends we haven't accounted for come looking for them."
"The house is being watched?" the Arch-Mage of True Passion wondered.
"Since we've been getting more subgirls back after the mess with our friends in the Marvel universe, they'll take eight-hour watches on site until we've rounded them up or when Liam and his friends are deemed safe so they can help," Brenda said.
Eyes locked on the silver-haired seventh of the Benson-class known now as the Meditative Tippler of the Great River, Laffey; despite such a moniker, the adopted native of Ireland's County Galloway (birthplace of her namesake Bartlett Laffey) and San Francisco (where she was built) didn't drink. An apprentice to America's first shipgirl Naomi Haight-Ashbury, the reborn destroyer had developed an incredible cosmic sense of her own, almost akin to that of the most powerful of the Children of the Forge herself, Kasuga Ayumu AKA the Goddess Who Walks Among Men, Nodim ("Infinity"). It came with some costs; since she spiritually only massed about one-third the displacement of the reborn USS Long Beach, Brenda had developed a noticeable case of narcolepsy. Fortunately, since sundown was approaching — and she also had her starship-self now in geosynchronous orbit at the meridian of the City by the Bay to use when necessary — she would be alert for whatever would happen tonight.
"Um...could I propose something, Teitoku?"
Eyes locked on the wary-looking Tokina. "What is it, Tokina-chan?" Kanami asked.
The adopted native of Maizuru — such was also the place Tokina's sister Motoko was built as THG Hatsuyuki — hummed. "Well, since Brooke-san and Chloe-san came here to deal with this immortal mayor who's said to be here — and who clearly has HAD to have made deals with someone incredibly powerful to stay alive in THIS place all these years! — wouldn't it be wise to bring a battleship shipgirl or two here as well? I'm aware that all the Montana-class and the last two of the Iowa-class have returned, as have the former Washington of the Colorado-class and the older South Dakota-class ships...!"
Xander shook his head. "They're still being drilled in ship handling duties and getting their basic metahuman wing qualifications under their belts before Yvonne would trust them to do anything any shipgirl who saw active service could, Tokina."
"What about any of the battleships with Teitoku at Welcome House then?" Motoko then asked from her position by the kitchen; April Mears was busy on snack duty. "We have Roma and all four of the Kongō-class ships back now."
Jenn stared warily at her older sister. "Um...better not be Hiei, though," the adopted native of Westchester County in New York then warned...before she blinked as Brenda raised her hand to wave her off. "Brenda...?"
"Not because of what happened at the 'Canal, Jenn," the silver-haired destroyer said before sipping from her ever-present bottle of Coca Cola. "Because Mama Cass teaches me her version of Zen, Sarah tends to get weirded out around me."
"Let's not bring in the huge guns just yet until we know what's really going on with the Mayor," Buffy then advised, smiling in thanks at the two visiting Japanese shipgirls' kind offer. "After all, I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the idea of someone like 'I'll never swear' Richard Wilkins actually being a DEATH CHEATER of all things..."
A knock echoed from the front door, making Chloe Zitzewitz — she and her task unit mate from the Battle off Samar would permanently take over the former home of the She-Mantis who was one of the first beasts the Scooby Gang had dealt with after they came together as a group in the autumn of 2012; Xander Harris gladly gutted the creature with his ki claws before bringing an actual LANDSHARK from Yiziba to EAT the kleptes-virgo as a tasty snack — head over to answer it. "Oh! Admiral Chase! Come in!" the adopted native of Xootsnoowú on the Alaskan panhandle called out, waving Cordelia Chase inside.
The former queen of Sunnydale High's social scene wasn't alone; she had an arm wrapped around a dazed darker-haired version of herself in fresh clothes. "Hey, Chari! Welcome back!" Buffy called out to Charisma Carpenter. "How you feeling?"
A stunned look answered the Mighty Maid of the Mountains. "What the HELL did you DO to me, Summers...?!" the just-reborn vampire weakly asked even if she didn't resist her former groupie helping her sit down on a nearby sofa.
"You drank blood with loads of meson in it from one of us," Buffy explained. "It jump-started your heart, cleared out the bad mojo that made you a vampire, then let you 'live' again as a normal person." As Charisma's jaw dropped in shock, the older Slayer calmly drew out one of her signature silver-and-mesonium-lined vibro-knives she had built specifically by the leader of the Sweet Valley Boosters, Elizabeth Wakefield, shortly after the Angelino teen was Gifted in the spring of 2010. "As for the 'demon' inside you, there never was one. After you got turned, the ebony meson and the demonic mojo just warped your soul so bad, most normal folks said you were possessed. After all, how did Angel 'get his soul back' when the Kalderash caught him?"
"In our cosmology, it just doesn't make sense, Charisma," Willow Rosenberg helpfully added.
The other girl blinked before she seemed to shy away as Brooke Roberts came over to stare intently at her. "Wow, she's really out of it," the Escort Who Fights Line Warriors whose crew punched WAY above their abilities sixty-eight years before mused.
Her new "admirals" gazed her way. "You don't have Dying Will Flames too, do you?" Xander asked.
Charisma moaned. "Oh, shit! The metahuman MAFIA is here?!" she groaned.
"Liam told you about them?" Buffy wondered.
"Yeah! He ran into them in the way-old days when he was in Europe, just after he fought this Rail-Splitter guy over in Chicago!" the just-restored vampire breathed out. "Especially those Vindice bastards! Angelus tried to turn one of the Mafia bosses in Sicily back then, then nearly got wiped out of existence when these cloaked bastards showed up and chased him off!"
"Show her, Chloe," the elder Slayer then declared.
Charisma blinked before she gargled as the reborn escort carrier held out one gloved hand, allowing golden-reddish Sky flames to leap out of her palm to cover that extremity in a very bright aura. "That's a warning, by the way," Cordelia noted as she gave her old friend a wry look. "You try to blab about it, you're on your way to Vendicare, which is said to be even NASTIER than that Gonebren prison the Brit wand wavers have over in England or what the Canucks have up on Ellsemere Island."
The just-restored vampire turned as pale as a ghost. "Shit...!"
"What about Miss Carpenter's family, Admiral?" Brooke asked. "How do we reveal to them that their daughter's okay?"
As Charisma blushed at the show of concern by the reborn destroyer escort, the only-still pre-Gifted member of the Scooby Gang sighed; even if she had been linked to the Great Crystal of Power thanks to Tariko Katabarbe after the latter recovered her memories in April, she surprised her empowered peers by wanting to hold off and make the right choice. "It's just like others who lose their kids to the night, Brooke," the daughter of one of the richest people in Sunnydale grimly declared. "Soon as Chari 'OD'd', they packed their bags and vamoosed from town, being made to forget they HAD a daughter in the first damned place by whoever put up those magical screens around this damned place. Haven't any idea where they moved off to, either."
"She can stay with us, Admiral," Chloe stated, making Charisma gape. "It's cruel that Wilkins — if it WAS him, by the way — would literally take your FAMILY away from you, Miss Carpenter." Here, she held up her glowing hand. "Family's important. And I'm from the time when the idiots on the other side of the Hudson gladly KIDNAPPED magical children from 'no-maj' parents, then OBLIVIATED the parents' memories of ever HAVING a child. That was a crime against humanity itself."
Willow scowled. "Thank God that disgusting shit was stopped when the Übermenschen trashed the Magical Congress in '42 and President Roosevelt got in there with Magical Executive Order 9005 to shut it all down."
The other non-shipgirls in the living room — plus Brenda and Jenn — nodded in understanding. "By the way, girls, did you have a chance to look through your PAAs and find out who was there for your crews off Samar?" the Meditative Tippler asked.
As the Scooby Gang all grinned knowingly, the two veterans of Taffy Three looked over. "What do you mean?" Chloe asked.
Pulling out her multipurpose communications/healing/teleportation device, the Meditative Tippler laid on the armrest of her chair, then tapped the control crystal. Such produced a beautiful holographic diagram, projecting the image of a HUGE battleship which seemed a longer cross-bred version of a Montana-class from America with a Littorio-class from Italy. As the two Japanese shipgirls seemed to shy away from gazing upon such an image — the impact the vessels they and their peers called Ryūseizen had on their living kami made such ships seem practically sacred, on the same level as the legendary pre-dreadnought battleship Mikasa who was Tōgō Heihachirō's flagship at Tsushima in 1905 was — Chloe's and Brooke's jaws nearly dropped to the deck before they nearly teleported themselves to lean right into Brenda's face. "YOU KNOW HER?!" both girls screeched.
The members of the Scooby Gang all laughed at such a reaction...
On Market Street heading towards the Bronze, an hour later...
"Thanks for the fresh clothes, Cordi!"
"Anytime, Chari!" Cordelia Chase said as she warmly hugged one of April Mears' arms while the Scooby Gang and their guests headed west towards the popular all-age nightclub. Even if everyone were in civilian clothing — even the shipgirls now among them — there was a tense alertness being projected from all of them; the sun had gone down two hours before and it was a half-hour past the end of astronomical twilight. Even more so, Sunnydale's public works department had never been good when it came to provide proper street lighting for its public thoroughfares; there were places of considerable darkness which could be used as ambush points. Fortunately for Buffy Summer's friends, their leader was an experienced empath who could sniff out approaching danger even without the need of her Slayer senses; in fact, over the last two years, the Angelino high school senior had come to rely on her Yizibajohei Gifts far more than what had been passed down to her over the previous five millennia ultimately from Sineya in Africa when the Slayer line had first originated with the help of the Shadowmen.
"We've got incoming, people," Brenda Laffey, who had agreed to be Buffy's date for this evening, quietly warned.
As the Akiyama sisters nodded in understanding — the two reborn air defence destroyers were prepared to use their photokinetic abilities (they so blessed because their ship names include the kanji 月 for the Moon) to light up the neighbourhood if necessary — while they, Chloe Zitzewitz, Brooke Roberts and Jenn Murphy began to scan around, the Mighty Maid of the Mountains hummed. "Half-dozen. All skilled martial artists, too," she announced, making Hayashi Kanami perk. "Sword fighters."
"Stupid," the Untameable One noted as she allowed her own ki senses to reach out; while not as well-trained as she would like to have been, her abilities to detect unseen potential targets were almost as good as her fight team leader.
"Why do you say that, Teitoku?" Akiyama Motoko wondered as she drew close to Coya Gutierrez, earning the Shiny Moon of Mid-Summer a warm smile in return; since the Volcanic Handmaiden had been an ally of her new "hull's" creator five millennia before, she was seen by all the shipgirls as someone who DEFINITELY deserved to be protected. "They feel like samurai."
"Not knocking Yoiko-san or her crew down, Motoko-chan, but depending too much on weapons makes you vulnerable in case they break," the physically strongest of the Children of the Forge noted as she exchanged a look with Faith Lehane; the Belle of the Wilderness was one of two battle lines on Yiziba who could equal Kanami strength for strength. As the south Bostonian nodded in agreement while warmly gripping Chloe's hand — they had agreed to be dance partners, which could develop into something more passionate as the night moved on, given the weekend started at midnight — the teen martial arts prodigy added, "Take away a sword or wand or other tool, what have you got? Look at all the stupid stalebloods from Europe..."
"You dare dishonour us, woman?!"
Everyone stopped as people dressed in soft gold martial arts gi appeared out of the shadows, their faces deformed in a very familiar way as they brandished a mixture of Oriental bladed arms, mostly Chinese in origin as only two had recognizable katana in hand. In flashes of energy, all the metahumans present switched into their very colourful battlesuits, with Buffy drawing out two duelling machetes. "Hey, guys! Nice night out, isn't it?" the reborn Nesetimtuto-mem frontier warrior asked.
Smiles answered her. "Indeed it is, Lady Summers. A nice night to die, of course!" their obvious leader growled.
"No thanks," she quipped. "I'm very much in love with living. So are my friends. Who are you, anyway?"
Surprised yet inwardly quite pleased by such a Zen-like show, the attacking vampires slightly relaxed. "We are known as the El Eliminati, Lady Summers," the leader's right-hand man noted. "Atop our other duties, we've been invited to kill both yourself and Lady Lehane. I trust you understand that sort of thing given what you've both done so far upon the Hellmouth."
Faith chuckled as Chloe shifted herself to silently call up her Sky flames, allowing the golden-orange energy to spread out to encompass all those around her. "Hey, we've got this thing about death cheating! It's not right," the Belle of the Wilderness said as she cracked her knuckles, surprising the attackers by not drawing out a weapon. "'Sides, you boys' boss mind this?"
"He will understand even if he cares not to join in on Mister Trick's so-called 'SlayerFest'," a third vampire ventured.
That made Faith perk. "What?! Trick?! Hey, Kevin's still in town?! Good! Need to talk to the man...!"
She then jolted as something slammed into her chest above her cleavage, the loud echo of a gun sounding off. "Sniper!" Jenn screamed out. "We got normals here, too! Duckies, light up the sky! Watch your eyes, everyone!"
Both Motoko and her sister Tokina put up hands, bursts of blinding light exploding from them...
...which made a dozen people BEYOND the Scooby Gang and their friends — and the El Eliminati as well, who ducked when the Amphibious Engineer barked her command to the visiting Japanese destroyers — howl at such eye-searing brilliance.
"GOT 'EM!" the Escort Who Fights Line Warriors bellowed as she lunged.
Before either of the Gruenshtahler brothers Hans and Frederick could react, the reborn destroyer escort was on them in an instant, her hands crushing the barrels of their sniper rifles before they could accidentally discharge and hit someone who didn't have any sort of physical invulnerability as Faith possessed. Such an action also blinded four other people who had weapons out and had moved to close in on the Scooby Gang: One normal man in what appeared to be a sniper's ghillie suit, two other vampires in somewhat dated clothes which would have been in fashion in the 1920s and a green-skinned demon with spinal horns on the top of his skull. Also blinded were several bystanders, including some of the Scooby Gang's peers at Sunnydale High and a man in a dark business suit. "TAKE OUT THE SNIPERS!" the Meditative Tippler ordered. "SOMEONE BURN THAT DEMON!"
Both of the Duckies perked before they focused on the hissing humanoid who had been dangerously close to Cordelia. Without hesitation, they allowed their photokinetic abilities to merge with their first generation battle dolls' force projection powers to send two three metre-wide beams of pure burning power at the snarling member of the Miquot Clan.
Kulak shrieked in agony as his whole body turned into an instant inferno before the force elements of Tokina's and Motoko's attack crushed his body, sending him flying backwards to be impaled on a nearby tree branch, he just having deployed bony claws from his inner forearms before he could have got at the slayers. Seeing that, Xander Harris laughed as he ran over, jumping off the ground with Willow Rosenberg's help using a telekinetic boost. "NICE!" the Wild Scavenger of the Plains whooped as ten foot-long burning gold ki blades extended from his fingertips as he landed before his target, his very experienced eyes noting that the reptilian-like humanoid was moving to regenerate. "Scream, boy!"
Forming solid shanks with his primary weapons, the reborn hunter from the northern polar continent closed in, shearing off both the demon's hands before Kulak could pull himself clear of the damned tree he was still stuck on. As the others of the Scooby Gang exploded into action while the members of the El Eliminati moved to gang up on Buffy, Cordelia moved to grab Charisma and get her to safety since Brooke was busy with the two German terrorists who had several murders on their tab, not to mention a successful attack on an American passenger aircraft a year before. Seeing the two obvious civilians moving to get clear and knowing the very fashionably dressed girl was an ally of the Scooby Gang, William Frawley — who was getting his sight back after those sisters used some light-generating power to blind him — spun around to level his sniper weapon on Cordelia's head. Before he could squeeze the trigger — the werewolf hunter's eyes were more used to pyrotechnics since he often used them to blind his targets in the same way that Tokina and Motoko did just now — a blur of white and blue appeared in his scope...
...then he awked as a blue-covered boot slammed into his chest to knock the air out of his lungs! Frawley folded in on himself as his attacker tore his weapon away from him, crushing the barrel to ensure the rifle didn't discharge, then she dropped an elbow on his skull, knocking him out. "Admiral Chase! Ms. Carpenter! Watch over this guy!" the reborn Samuel B. Roberts snapped.
Cordelia and Charisma nodded, they moving to stand over the stunned hunter just as a voice called out, "Snack time...!"
Before Candy Gorch could snare the once-queen of Sunnydale High's social scene, her friend lashed out with a backhand punch that slammed right into the mouth — and the extended fangs — of the blonde native of Abeline in Texas. Gasping as her head rang from the still-vampire high blow, the wife of a known killer from the latter days of the Old West before he was even turned then felt several drops of what had to be the most richest-smelling blood she had ever encountered fall onto her tongue...
...then she screeched in agony as the shards of mesonium in the just-restored vampire teen's blood instantly seared into her own body, causing it to glow slightly as the demonic magic descent from the time of Maloker during the final years of the End War — that Old One had been imprisoned with friends in a dimensionally-displaced cave somewhere in Existence, one created by the Undying Lord himself — began to be burned OUT of her reviving body. Seeing what the brat had done, Candy's husband Lyle screamed out before leaping over to knock Cordelia down, his own fangs plunging into the girl's outstretched arm.
"Hey, asshole!" she said with a smirk even if her nerves were afire from the puncture wounds. "I'm ALSO pre-Gifted!"
The undead murderer from Abeline blinked on hearing that...
...before he shrieked in agony as Cordelia's blood now in his mouth began to work on his long-dormant body. Shoving the man off her, she got up, then delivered a well-aimed kick at his groin to ensure that the howling murderer would stay down. "Nice one, Teitoku!" Motoko called out, having seen what the once-vapid and self-centred girl had done to her attacker...
...then she jolted as several bone claws tried to punch into her spine.
Snarling, the Shiny Moon of Mid-Summer turned to see another of Kulak's clan now staring at the snapped ends of his own weapons, her golden-grey eyes then blazing with infernal energy. "BURN!" the adopted native of Maizuru hissed.
Said idiot then was literally burned alive by her eye beams, the extremities of his arms and legs surviving such an onslaught before Coya teleported in behind Motoko, waving her hands to send disintegrating beams of lava-like energy to wipe out the rest. "Looks like Spikey here brought friends!" Xander called out before using the claws of one hand to behead Kulak.
"HUMAN FILTH! THAT WAS MY BROTHER!"
"DOWN, TEITOKU!"
As another member of the Miquot leapt from a nearby tree to attack the Wild Scavenger, Xander dived aside...
...just as both eye and arm beams from the Autumn Moon Dancer literally turned him into ashes in one blow!
Three blocks away at Angel's mansion...
"Damn...!" Mister Trick breathed out in disbelief.
As his current host called out into a microphone to get the mercenaries he hired to retreat to safety, the veteran of the Great War shook his head, wondering how the hell that so many people — himself included — had totally got things WRONG...!
On Market Street by Third Avenue...
Jenn McLeod Murphy perked as she felt something ping the spiritual version of her AN/WLR-1 electronic countermeasures system — which she herself had not been fitted with, but several of her sisters had been so equipped after World War Two on their transfer to Taiwan and Italy — then she gazed east for a moment towards the mansion once used by Liam O'Connor.
"Oh, THERE you are...!"
And in a flash of energy, the Amphibious Engineer of the Lënapehòkink vanished in a burst of PAA teleportation energy...
Angel's mansion...
"Oh, SHIT!" the vampire born Kevin Freeman croaked as his own well-honed danger senses went crazy.
His host looked over. "What is it...?" Justin Pitt demanded...
...before a flash of energy caught the elderly man off guard, an elbow slamming on his head to stun him!
Before Mister Trick could lunge for a nearby doorway and escape, the reborn sixteenth of the Benson-class fleet destroyers was on him, snaring the man in a headlock while pulling out a handy canteen from her belt pouch. Dropping both herself and Trick backwards into a neck hold belly-to-back suplex, slamming the Harlem native onto the floor hard! That made Trick gasp, his mouth opening wide...which was enough for Jenn Murphy to drain the small canteen's worth of blood down his throat.
As the former Harlem Hellfighter shrieked in agony while the mesonium in that blood went to work on his animated corpse, she let go, somersaulting over the man back to her feet. Once on a solid deck again, the Amphibious Engineer pointed at Pitt, a bolt of energy appearing at the tip of that extremity...only to see the older man's hands raised in surrender, which made Jenn relax herself. Before the man who had hired the Gruenshtahler brothers to help out in SlayerFest '12 could say anything, another flash of PAA teleportation energy produced a dark-haired reborn submarine. "Lucky thing I just got off watch!" Clover Hollingsworth said as she reached over to snare the man's shoulder before mentally keying her PAA to teleport them both to Fort Sam Houston.
Jenn smirked before she perked on hearing Trick croak out, "Wh-why...?"
Looking over her shoulder to see the dark-skinned veteran of the Great War gaze painfully at her as his "game face" melted back into his normal looks, the adopted native of Westchester County north of the Big Apple proper smirked. "I honour the history of the Hellfighters by being an Army girl, Sergeant Freeman," the rather daring-looking blonde noted, her pale grey eyes twinkling with both amusement and interest, which would have once made the Harlem native blush on seeing a WHITE girl look at her like that. "Yeah, you love the night. I can get that, but trying this shit on Admiral Summers isn't going to be tolerated."
The slowly-reviving Kevin blinked before the pain of his transformation back into a living being totally overcame him...
Back on Market Street by Third Avenue...
He had been contemplating this for months now.
Ever since he really began to clue into the horrible truths behind his boss — which had been easy to obtain when one knew where to look — Deputy Mayor Allan Finch had planned for a chance like this since he decided it was time that Richard Wilkins had to be done away with...and letting that monster fall at the hands of Buffy Summers and her friends would do that very well.
Unlike most of those who understood the truths of living in this town, the dark-haired administrator was not a Sunnydale native; his family moved into the city with a Hellmouth from Ohio when he was a teenager, in days where the "nightlife" hadn't been so active and such beings could get away with what they did to innocent people — including a long-dead girlfriend of Finch's when he attended Sunnydale High in the 1990s — without too many asking very embarrassing questions. It was only when he had graduated from the University of California's local site on the east end of Sunnydale's urban area with a BBA in 2003 that things started to dawn on him, matters slowly conformed over the years he worked up the administrative ladder at City Hall before being chosen as Wilkins' running mate in the 2008 elections. Once he got to his current office, the transplanted Ohioan was thrown right into the deep end; as deputy mayor, he served as direct liaison between the long-lived sorcerer and city department heads who were in on Sunnydale's all-too many secrets. And while he contemplated resigning his post and fleeing town shortly after he had learned that a former schoolmate's son had been lost to the night, the opening battles between the just-formed Scooby Gang and the Order of Aurelius under the overall command of the Master suddenly gave him a sense of new hope.
He wouldn't be stupid about it, though. Doing that in a town that was as compromised magically as Sunnydale was could only lead to either suicide-by-vampire or something far worse in case Wilkins himself got wind of what was going on. With the nightlife soon fighting for their very existences at the hands of one — later two when first Kendra Young, then Faith Lehane came to town! — vampire Slayers and their friends, more and more people within Sunnydale itself soon began to shake off the local "ignorance syndrome" that blinded them to far too much. While the once-nimmib master sorcerer and would-be Old One had long prepared for such an eventuality — the town was layered in a way that no pure-magical habitation could ever HOPE to possess, with well-designed layers of notice-me-not wards to block out the sensors of the Department of Magic in downtown Manhattan from noting such magic, memory altering wards that made standard magical Obliviation seem quite prosaic in comparison, plus some technomagical systems that frequently sent probes through the Internet to ensure no one on line could learn more about Sunnydale as a whole — such shields were breaking down and more and more people from outside the city were looking more carefully at the place, interfering with Wilkins' efforts to mask things from such nosy outsiders.
Then came the revelations of February and March...
First came the arrival of Faith Lehane from Boston, who had appeared in front of town-wide security cameras in a green sleeveless battlesuit with various flowers decorating said suit liberally...
...and with her displaying abilities which made her seem like Superman himself in a way!
Anyone who didn't recognize an honest-to-goodness METAHUMAN in the so-called "Dark Slayer" from Boston was an idiot!
And then came the events at the Sunnydale Mall in the early part of March...
...when the very woman believed to have killed Usāma bin Lādin himself the previous May appeared, supposedly at Buffy Summers' request, to literally DISINTEGRATE the Judge — a being said to be totally invulnerable to any weapon forged by the hands of mortal men — with her BARE HANDS, such an act sending the members of the Whirlwind fleeing!
Seeing that woman's black jumpsuit with hooded rune-line cape and the muted skull-and-crossbones on her upper chest — and learning it was the SAME design as what had been worn by the dark angel who had delivered the free world's vengeance and judgment on the leader of al-Qā'idah at his hidden base in the mountains of Pakistan, a being whose existence had confirmed the presence of the so-called "Angels of Darkness" who had plagued Islamic terrorist groups for a half-decade in the Middle East — had been quite the eye-opener to Wilkins and those of his lackeys who were fully in the know about things, including Finch.
The rumoured Second Age of Metahumans had really fallen on humanity!
While Wilkins had guarded against the state-led "parahumans" — whose powers were NOT derived from the Atom of True Life whose capabilities, if used correctly, could easily trump that of the would-be Old One himself — in recent decades...
...said guards were proving to be quite USELESS against people who WERE touched by mesonium!
Before long, staff at City Hall soon learned exactly WHERE such empowerment came from...!
And how it had affected a ton of people, INCLUDING Buffy Summers, Faith Lehane and their allies in the Scooby Gang.
The World of the Forge itself had somehow begun to interact quite directly with the city on a Hellmouth!
As to the "how", people at City Hall directly answering to Wilkins still weren't sure...
...but given the battlesuits that Summers, Lehane and her friends wore when they went on their patrols around town...!
Then came the final nail in the coffin for Wilkins...and Finch himself.
The open revelation of shipgirls...!
Having sensed the rebirth of the Grey Ghost herself in early April within Sweet Valley — a town that was exceptionally warded itself from outside detection; as to the "who" did that, Wilkins simply had no idea — but not understanding it...
...until Captain Yvonne Claudia Swanson USN of River Vale in New Jersey, Newport News in Virginia, Brooklyn in New York — and Sweet Valley here in California! — was publicly revealed by the President himself in the wake of the quite PUBLIC salvage and transformation of the famous German battleship Bismarck off the coast of France in late August!
The existence of THOSE beings — several of whom had been reborn from the destroyers lost in the Honda Point disaster which occurred near Sunnydale in the spring of 1923 — had driven the mayor into a near-panic...
...which accelerated his plans to evolve himself into a being who could FIGHT such reborn ship spirits on an even level!
That would most likely occur on Hallowe'en evening not five days away!
Having long learned how POWERFUL such ancient demons really were...!
It was the last straw for Allan Finch.
He had to get away...
He had to warn Buffy and her friends what was coming down...
With the little shred of true humanity in his soul, he had to save as many as he could...
Even in...
A gunshot rang through the air!
"Shit! More snipers!" Brooke Roberts screamed out.
"Here!"
Hearing the voice of the Wary Jackrabbit — who was in full metahuman Mafia mode now, allowing the memories of the several of her crew from the Famiglia Beccio who had died on her decks when she was sunk or were rescued by magical sailors from the Royal Canadian Navy during the Battle of Samar — call from nearby, Buffy Summers waved her duelling blades (which she had coated with her own blood to overcome the members of El Eliminati who came out to kill her and her sister Slayer this evening) before she looked over, then she gasped on seeing who was now being cradled by Chloe Zitzewitz. "Mister Finch!"
The others of the Scooby Gang and their friends perked on hearing the name of the deputy mayor before they moved to gather close to the adopted native of Xootsnoowú, who was trying to stem the blood now spurting from an arterial wound in his upper chest; the bullet that nailed him from a just-recovered Hans Gruenshtahler punched through the man's right subclavian artery that fed directly from his heart. As Chloe tried to cauterize the wound with her Sky flames, Akiyama Tokina leapt over to nail the German terrorist with a knee to the jaw, snapping his neck along the way while her sister Motoko kicked his pistol clear of his hand before turning around to punch his brother Frederick in the head to effortlessly crush his skull. "Shit! It's bad...!" Xander Harris hissed as he knelt beside the reborn aircraft carrier. "Wills, we need healing spells, quick as you can!"
"No...too late...here...!"
Finch shakily held up his hand, opening it to reveal a computer flash drive. "Everything...about Wilkins..." he gasped before his head dropped to one side, a final relieved breath escaping him. "Go...Razor-...backs...!"
Silence fell as Xander reached over to pick up said flash drive before turning the man's hand around to reveal his school ring. "Class of '99," the Wild Scavenger of the Plains breathed out, then he handed the flash drive to Willow Rosenberg.
"I'll take that, Miss Rosenberg!"
People perked before they turned...
...then they sighed on seeing an infantry section's worth of both uniformed and plain clothed members of the local police force moving to surround them, weapons drawn and aimed their way. Noting Chief Bob Munroe himself was in charge of this group — among them were well-known idiots who always tried to find any way to remove the Scooby Gang from the streets of the town, they OBVIOUSLY knowing the many truths of this place — the Mighty Maid of the Mountains took a deep breath before she gazed on her would-be date for this evening. "Hey, Brenda, is shit like this enough to declare MARTIAL LAW?"
Brenda Laffey hummed before drawing out a bottle of Coca Cola. "Captain Zitzewitz's friends from the old country..."
"SHUT UP!" Munroe snapped as he aimed his pistol right at Buffy's head. "I've had ENOUGH of you wrecking things, Summers! You're under arrest on accessory to first-degree murder charges! Hand over that flash drive, Rosenberg!"
Snarling, Chloe held out her hand, allowing her flames to send a burst of energy right into the sky!
"...will be here right away," the Meditative Tippler then finished before sipping from her drink.
Before anyone could say anything, a dark smog-like miasma of energy soon flooded over the scene...
"WHO OF THE FAMIGLIA BECCIO SUMMONS US?!"
...then the policemen and those bystanders who weren't aware of things screamed on seeing black humanoid-like beings appear around them. Before the policemen — whom, Buffy then mused, Principal Reginald Snyder himself often described as "deeply stupid" on occasion because of their virtual lack of training and experience, especially when dealing with issues that happened after the Sun went down — could react, hands as cold as deepest space snared their weapons before they were seized by arms possessing incredibly inhuman strength. "I did!" the reborn escort carrier then declared, facing the warrior of the Vindice who how held a gasping Munroe down. "These devil-aligned fools would gladly destroy OMERTÀ serving a monster who has the blood of THOUSANDS — especially relatives of MY OWN CREW — who have fallen in this Godforsaken place!"
The others of the Scooby Gang and their friends moved to close ranks around the adopted native of Xootsnoowú. "We do not know you, Sea Angel with the Flames of the Sky," another of the Vindice demanded from Chloe's right. "Who are you?"
"«Honore Chloe Zitzewitz, Beccio Patrizia di Xootsnoowú e Vancouver,»" the Arch-Mage of True Passion said in Italiano, a smile on her face. "«Nineteenth of the Famiglia della portaerei Casablanca, who fell at the Battle of Leyte Gulf.»"
"My admirals honour Omertà, Signori," Chloe then declared with a bow of her head. "These animals do not and would gladly help unleash Hell itself once more on Earth were their master to succeed! They DESERVE Vendicare!"
The Vindice present all nodded. "For the peace of all, it will be done, Signora Capitano," their leader declared...
...then before any of the trapped police officers could react, they were teleported across two continents and an ocean away!
As the Scooby Gang and their friends relaxed themselves while some drew out PAAs to send the stunned vampires off to a place owned by Xander — who, as an emancipated minor, didn't have to worry about his drunkard father or airhead mother trying to take away what money the Wild Scavenger earned — so they could recover, the Escort Who Fights Line Warriors gazed at her old task unit mate. "Gamby, captain or not, you GOT to tell me what's going on with mooks like that!" Brooke warned.
"Let's lose some bodies first before we hit the Bronze," Xander then suggested.
"Good point," Buffy breathed out as she drew her own PAA...
To Be Continued...
WRITER'S NOTES
Translation note and source language: Lar'beke — Snake leech (Yizibajohei); C-in-C — Commander-in-Chief (English abbreviation); Kleptes-virgo — Virgin thief (Latin); Ryūseizen — Dragon-killing ship (Japanese); Omertà — Based on the Greek word ámartis ("without witness"), this is the traditional code of silence criminal clans from the old country use to prevent snitching to the proper authorities (Italian); Famiglia della portaerei Casablanca — Literally "family of the Casablanca aircraft carriers" (Italian); Signori — Plural of Signor ("lord/mister") (Italian).
Buffy the Vampire Slayer notes: Natalie French AKA the She-Mantis first appeared in "Teacher's Pet" (first season, episode four). Note that the backstory of Coya Yupanqui (Pacha Kamaq) is my creation, such as her year of birth and how she wound up as she did when she was helped in being Gifted by Xander Harris (Hyena). Sineya first appeared in "Restless" (fourth season, episode 22). The men who empowered her, the Shadowmen, first appeared in he third issue of Mr. Whedon's Fray comic book series (published in August 2001). Hans and Frederick Gruenshtahler first appeared in "Homecoming" (third season, episode five), as did Kulak of the Miquot Clan, William Frawley (his given name is my invention) and Candy Gorch; note that Candy's husband Lyle Gorch first appeared in "Bad Eggs" (second season, episode 12). Maloker first appeared in the twenty-third issue of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Nine comic series (published in July 2013). Deputy Mayor Allan Finch also made his first appearance in "Homecoming". Note that his background is my invention, inspired by his actor Jack Plotnick, who was born in Worthington near Columbus in the Buckeye State; his actual year of graduating from Sunnydale High School is calculated by the actor's actual age when he "died" in the series, shifted to match the timeline of this story.
Stargate SG-1 notes: Anubis was first mentioned in "Between Two Fires" (fifth season, episode nine) and first appeared in "Revelations" (fifth season, episode 25).
Lënapehòkink is the native American name for a region stretching from Delaware north to the Hudson River valley in New York state as far north as Albany, spanning west to east from the Susquehanna River valley in Pennsylvania to the modern borders of New England. This is the traditional home territory of the Lenape peoples, known more historically as the Delaware.
The shipgirl list of the "Quaky Quartet" AKA the Kongō-class from Japan...
Chihaya Anna-taisa DNTK (Tennō Heika Gunkan Kongō [JS-5])
Chihaya Sarah-taisa DNTK (Tennō Heika Gunkan Hiei [JS-6])
Chihaya Isabel-taisa DNTK (Tennō Heika Gunkan Kirishima [JS-7])
Chihaya Heather-taisa DNTK (Tennō Heika Gunkan Haruna [JS-8])
They take after their Kantai Collection selves in looks and behaviour. The hull code JS means Junyō Senkan ("Battlecruiser").
One spoiler alert...
Tōgō Mihoko-shōshō DNTK (Tennō Heika Gunkan Mikasa [ZS-6])
When she is salvaged and Gifted, she will take after her Azur Lane self save for the horns; the shipgirls of the Sakura Empire in that particular series are most often depicted as one sort of therianthrope or another. Given who she served as the flagship, Mihoko would be granted the traditional rank of Kaigun-shōshō ("Navy Lower Flag Officer"), the equal of a rear admiral in English-speaking maritime warfare services; her equivalent Maritime Self-Defence Force rank title is Kaishō-ho ("Assistant Navy Flag Officer"). Her hull code ZS means Zendokyū Senkan ("Pre-Dreadnought Battleship"); despite there being one line of numbers for all capital ships in the Land of the Rising Sun, the difference between pre-dreadnoughts and dreadnoughts (the latter group being given hull code DS, meaning Dokyū Senkan or "Dreadnought Battleship") is noted on.
Since I doubt any will appear in these omake, the "incomplete" American battleships mentioned by Akiyama Tokina (THG Akizuki) won't be listed here. For your personal perusal, their names and looks can be seen on Space Battles at post #78671464 or on Questionable Questing at post #4724689. Several of them did appear in Extreme Shipgirls.
Elizabeth Wakefield (the Academician) is one of the two stars of the Sweet Valley High novel series, appearing in all novels published alongside her twin sister Jessica Wakefield (Rampage).
Katekyō Hitman Reborn notes: The Vindice first appeared in "The End and the Aftermath" (manga chapter #81). Their prison Vendicare (which is also a name used to describe the Vindice as a group in some translations) first appears in "Mukuro Arrives!" (manga chapter #116). As an aside, Her Majesty's Prison Gonebren was created by myself for the Icemaidens series and has appeared in most of my writings when I mention the British wizarding world. Gonebren's Canadian counterpart, Quttinirpaaq Magical Penitentiary, was first introduced in Part Six of Magic and Canada.
The AN/WLR-1 system is an early form of electronic countermeasures fitted to NATO warships in the 1960s; at this time as noted in the narrative, six of the Benson-class destroyers were active in the Republic of China Navy and the Italian Navy and made use of such. The model code is based on the JETDS (Joint Electronics Type Designation System) format as follows:
AN — A system that can be used by both the Army and Navy
W — Navy system for both surface and underwater craft
L — Electronic countermeasures system
R — Passive detection system
1 — Model number
Now, magnified with a shipgirl's MSSB ("magical sparkly shipgirl bullshit") abilities, it is easy for people to understand how Jenn McLeod Murphy (USS Murphy) was quick to detect the transmission from Justin Pitt to the Gruenshtahler brothers.
As noted in other stories, there is a legal difference in the United States between metahumans and parahumans, based on the source-point of their powers. If one gains abilities from mesonium (either through Gifting from Yiziba or via empowerment on Earth from exposure to local sources of the Atom of True Life), one is seen as a "metahuman" and would fall under federal oversight. People gaining abilities without the input of mesonium (such as the "capes" from the online novel Worm and its sequel Ward) would fall under state or territorial oversight. In reflection of Mr. McCrae's series, the several states and commonwealths of the Union have locally-controlled Parahuman Response Team (PRT) defence forces as well as affiliated Protectorate teams of parahuman fighters to aid in civil defence. Since they're a team of Yizibajohei Gifted metahumans, the Scooby Gang would fall under direct oversight of Headquarters United States Joint Specialized Warfare Command (HQ JSWC), based out of the Fort San Antonio annex of Joint Base San Antonio within the same city of the Lone Star State.
When it comes to shipgirls possessing Dying Will Flames, they're given an honorary suffix title as note what was revealed about Roberta Ansaldo (RM Roma) and Paola de Lerici (RM Pola) earlier in this series. All such people are given the honorary rank Patrizia, the female form of Patrizio; this term is descent from the Roman patricians who formed the aristocratic families of the ancient republic. Being named "Beccio Patrizia" by Willow Rosenberg (Crimson Heart) identifies the specific famiglia that Chloe Zitzewitz (USS Gambier Bay) spiritually belongs to. Atop that, suffix terms are added indicating the spiritual "home" of said shipgirl and her place of construction; in Chloe's case, such is Xootsnoowú in the unorganized borough of Alaska (AKA Admiralty Island, on which her namesake bay borders) and Vancouver in Washington on the Columbia River.
