The heat hit her like a furnace, and she barely noticed. She'd spent the last five years living at the mouth of hell. Also in Southern California. It was hot here, hot and dry, and she could feel the sweat gush from her pores. Still...it was, as they said, dry heat. The moisture evaporated at once, leaving her stinky but dry. How had she not picked up that ability of Sulumor's by now?

The walls of Rankar Peak's crater would have seemed to tower over her head two weeks ago, but she had spent that time living in the shadow of literal skyscrapers made of brass and stone. The stone cliff dwellings that lined its walls were picturesque, but no more impressive. Dust blew through the air, the wind whistling between minor peaks and through alleyways. If the houses weren't clustered so thickly together, it might have felt like a gold rush town out west-which it sort of was, really. Well, that, and the only ones she had ever seen were ghost towns; Gem was as bustling as it could possibly be this time of day. "I need me one of those firedust weapons," she said to herself.

"A simple matter," Garima said. The akuma made Buffy twitchy. She seemed genuinely nice, even nicer than Sulumor or Cyan, and she was always able to find anything that was for sale, but according to Cearr the demon lords could overwrite her personality any time they chose. In fact, even as matters stood, she was an assassin so cold-blooded that nothing about her shifted when she killed. "It seems a waste, though. You could have brought better with you." A flamethrower-slash-pistol, and the kind Garima was talking about shot hellfire.

"Eh. I'm not really a fan of guns. Fits the atmosphere is all." She would consider it. There was a little bit of appeal in the idea of being the fastest draw in the South. "Are we ready for the gathering?"

"We are," Garima said, flatly. "I still do not approve. Yozi cults operate in secret, Buffy. This is how we survive. Nowhere in Creation tolerates open worship of the True Creators."

"And we'll keep doing that," Buffy explained for the umpteenth time. "We are not going to put up handbills saying, 'Come pay honor to Malfeas the Demon City.' What we are going to do is open up the revolution. There are thousands of people in Gem who are hanging on by the skin of their teeth. Malfeas would probably be an improvement, from their perspective. We bring them in by offering freedom and security. Then we reveal who gave it to them." She wasn't actually going to do that part, at least not in the way the akuma wanted, but Gem was desperate for a revolution. A real one this time-at least, she hoped. She knew enough about Gem's history, and her own, to know a lot of revolutions just turned into "meet the new boss, same as the old boss," and that it wasn't as simple as having good intentions.

Maybe, just maybe, it could be as simple as being Exalted. She doubted it, though.

"I don't see how you can accomplish what you're suggesting," Garima queried. "Too many people here believe they're one lucky strike away from being rich. It happens too often, and yet not often enough."

Buffy nodded. "We're going to use that, Garima. We're going to give them that lucky strike-we're going to hit the Sun Market. They make incredible profit, and I take over."

"The Sun Market? But the guards-" Garima's eyes nearly popped. "And they're only open during the heat of the day. Heat kills here, Slayer."

"We're going to get around all that. I'm still working on fixing the heat problem, but leave the guards to me. We're going to seize the richest assets in town. Then we're going to properly arm the masses. And last, we storm the Despot's palace." There was more to it than that, of course. A great deal more. She didn't trust the akuma with the rest, though. She could be trusted not to betray the Yozis, and that was the biggest problem.

"And your eyes, Slayer?" There was an issue. Buffy had habitually worn sunglasses whenever possible in Sunnydale. They were fashionable, and she'd had not the foggiest idea that there was anything supernatural wrong with her eyes. She had good night vision and it made it harder to see in daylight-what was strange about that? But sunglasses were harder to come by here.

"I'll find something. Or make something." Tinted glass wasn't too hard to find here, and she was enjoying the new aspects of being a Slayer. Running faster than anyone on the track team, beating up football players with ease, and using any weapon she laid her hands on were all utterly cool...for the first couple of years. That she could do more than that, [I]be[/I] more than that, was frightening, but it was an amazing rush, too. "I'm not sure what exactly, but it's a trivial problem." People had operated in the deep desert and the tundra for centuries; there were harder things than blocking out a little sun.

Buffy closed the curtains. The heat didn't change perceptibly, but it cut the light to almost nothing. "I've spent my life hiding what I am, and I didn't even know there was anything wrong with me. I'm tired of hiding, Garima. When we move-and we will move within the week-I'm going to do it openly. If the Realm notices, so much the better. I want them to see us."

"Won't they send the Legion to crush us? The Realm has tolerated Gem because it doesn't challenge their rule or their faith." Garima seemed genuinely frightened at the idea, as well she should be. As a Dragon-Blooded traitor, she'd be one of the first to die.

"They won't get the chance. The Realm is going to suffer the death of a thousand pinpricks, Garima." She had figured out that much of the plan herself. True, by making her take point, the Yozis or their Third-Circles likely meant her to draw the Realm's first blows, but there were ways around that. "They'll be stung by so many rebellions and invasions that they have no idea what to defend against or what's coming next." And she knew something that even the demon lords likely didn't know. In her last couple of days in hell, word had come of a fantastic city rising out of the sea in the far West with a cephalopodian anima banner shining above it. That had to be Fred. LIkely Xander, too, though there was no way to be sure. They were outside the Yozis' plan, and they had beaten Buffy to the punch. Hopefully they had the firepower to hold off Realm assaults from there. "I'm going to go speak to our people. Tell them to be ready."

Garima bowed deeply. "Our prayers are with you, Slayer. Go with Malfeas."

Buffy offered her best toothy grin. "My thoughts exactly."

Chapter 16: Teachers and Lessons

Anya feinted left, then lashed out with a kick.

Chejop Kejak wasn't there. He wasn't even in the ring. Anya blinked. Was there even a person by that name? Wait. Who was she fighting, anyway?

A blow landed in her gut, knocking her to the floor. Chejop Kejak stood over her. "You see the difficulty, then. That was, admittedly, a very advanced technique, known as 'Without Assumption', but I could have defeated you in dozens of ways. Your unarmed combat skill is real, but it is the accumulation of a thousand years of periodic brawling. There is much you must unlearn before you can begin to learn."

"Okay, then. I never said I was going to be a great student. I thought you were going to use a spell on me." She was still in the dark as to why Chop-job Carjack was even trying to train her. He wanted her dead. She knew this; she could read it in his every expression.

"I fully intend to do so, Anya, but first I want you to understand both why it's necessary and why I don't mean to simply insert supernatural power into your brain as well." Kejak fell easily into a fighting stance. A stiff breeze should have been able to blow over such a frail old man, but she knew better than to believe the appearance. "Even once we begin, I cannot simply transfuse you with everything you will ever need to know. Alas, life is not so simple even for us. Your long life has provided you with a great deal of skill and knowledge, Anya, but it took place in some other realm. You do not speak the ancient language of this place nor do you know its ways."

"I know. Fish out of water. I'm a quick study, Sifu. Just...I'm ready for you to hit me with it. I want to get this Exaltation thing up and running so that I can keep up with my friends." Not how she should have put it; he wanted her friends dead. But it was what she wanted, and she was no good with the whole subtlety thing.

It must have shown in her expression. "You don't know why I'm wasting time on you, do you? Would you like to know?"

"You can't seriously believe you'll get me to join the Bronze Faction, Mister Kejak. My orgasm friend is a Solar, a Lunar got us here, and you still haven't told me exactly what an Infernal is because apparently you don't know but Buffy is a good friend of mine and a good person. You're telling me they're all evil."

"I'm telling you no such thing." Chejop, unfazed by her torrential speech, began performing some sort of kata. "I expect that your friends are all people of good character. As was my friend, Tammuz Ushun, who once led the Gold Faction. As was my lover before the Usurpation, a Lunar named Galea. As were several other friends whom I was forced to betray. Solars, Lunars, fellow Sidereals-do you not see this, Anya? I have sacrificed my personal life, my relationships, over and over for the greater good, and few, if any, of those people were malicious or hateful or even particularly careless, at least in the beginning. The Solars were mad, not wicked."

Anya forgot herself sufficiently to try a sweep kick on the old master, who ignored it. Not even "evaded it"-ignored it completely as the blow passed by without affecting him. "You're going to have to explain the difference."

"I don't doubt that Xander, for instance, is a man of heroic temper, who stands for everything he believes to be right and good. You say he fought demons without any abilities beyond the ken of mortals, and I believe you. I expect that for decades he may well continue in that vein. But Xander does not have decades before him. In principle, he has millennia. The hidden flaw in his Exaltation must inevitably consume him, and by the time it does so he will be too powerful to easily defeat. Wait for him to go mad, and risk him countering your every attempt to depose him? Or simply never let him rise to power? Which is the prudent choice?"

Anya began trying to perform the kata Chejop was doing. It was much more complicated than it looked. "You really believe you can persuade me to turn on Xander. Without any special mind mojo."

"It will hurt you, Anya. I make no bones about that fact. But you will do it." Chejop changed the motions he was making, shifting to a form that involved some painful-looking hand gestures. "I know that you will do it, because you want to please him. What would Xander want? To die as himself, knowing that the world was safe from him? Or to become a dangerous, monstrous creature capable of ripping the tapestry of existence to shreds? You're not that petty, Anya, to choose a few years of love or sex over your partner's wishes. Are you?"

"I'm not," Anya said petulantly. "Though I have to say my friends would probably say at this point that it's time to look for a third option." She tried the hand gestures, which didn't work out spectacularly well.

"These are to limber up your fingers," Chejop said quietly, trying to be helpful. "This is not a form required to be exact."

"Right. Sorry." He had broken her train of thought, which was probably exactly what he intended. "Look, Sifu. You keep acting like I'm going to tell you you made a mistake. That you should have trusted the Solars to make everything somehow come out all right with a little guidance. I'm not going to say that. You made the call, and it was the right one, because the world's still here. It may not have been the only right call, but it was a right call. You see that? Buffy could have killed Dawn. She could have killed Angelus sooner. She could have blown up Adam with a bomb the way she did the Mayor. As long as the bad guy doesn't win and the world survives the call is right. The Gold Faction says you were wrong not to take the risky road, and that's stupid."

Chejop actually seemed to be listening to her for once. He shifted his posture, as if holding shears to cut someone's fate thread with. "Interesting line of argument. Certainly I've never heard it from someone who was in love with a Solar. How then can you agree that I was right without the logical action being to turn in your 'orgasm friend'? I acknowledge that your emotions are doubtless a factor."

Maybe she couldn't reach him. He was five times her age, and had been Exalted for most of it. He was months from death, and why change his mind now? He was at least as powerful as she'd ever been or more.

But damned if she wasn't going to try. "You made the right call...fifteen hundred years ago. Before the Great Contagion. Before the Fair Folk invasion. Before the Solars coming back and the deathknights appearing. I haven't heard any stories about more Great Prophecies. Just tell me one thing. Is this the future you saw? Plague and war and death and new enemies that you don't know how to beat? If it is, why didn't you plan ahead for any of it? If it's not, then why the hell didn't you say things had gone off course and make new prophecies? What about all these beings that are outside of fate? Couldn't they have thrown it all off by now?"

The ancient Sidereal scowled, but not at her. He looked...troubled. Had it worked? "No," he said at last. "I didn't see any of this in detail. As far as I know, no one saw past the Shogunate in the Vision of Bronze. I tried, Anya. I tried to unify us, to make better plans. In that, I do regret having failed."

"Chejop. You're the most powerful man in the world. How did you fail? And if even you couldn't succeed..." He wasn't going to change for this alone, but she had at least found a chink in his armor.

"You can't be saying that the answer is to let the Solars run free. Let alone Deathknights, and these new...Infernals you speak of. They brought disaster on the world, came within inches of destroying it." Without warning his kata broke, and his hands scissored shut on her arm.

Anya cried out, but she kept her feet. "And they saved it, too, a thousand times over. The Prophecy was fulfilled. You saved the world from them, kept it going for a millennium and a half. But don't you see? The crisis passed, and you never thought to change again. The world doesn't work that way!" She struggled in his grip, finally lashing out, bringing her left knee up into his groin. It struck home, but he didn't seem to notice. "I had a vision once, of a world where everyone was equal. I killed a royal family for it. I brought civil war and mass death and prison camps. And in the end? It failed. Marx's vision was a lie, a dead end. You were lucky enough to have a real prophecy, Sifu, but you've been following its vision for hundreds of years too long!"

His hands closed on her throat. "I could annihilate you with a touch, Anya. Do you know that? I could erase your ability to speak any language ever again. I could turn you into a rabbit." She cringed, knowing that would give away her phobia but unable to rein in her terror. "Who are you to speak to me like this? What are you? And why should I let you live?"

The terror crystalized and vanished, clarifying into a moment of absolute peace. He could do any of that. No answer could save her; no answer would damn her, either. If he wanted to do those things, he would. "I know what I am," she said. "I'm an ending. And you should let me live because you can't keep out new ideas forever. The real question, Ketchup, is what are you?"

His grip released, and he gave her a startling white smile. "I am...hmm. That is the question, isn't it?" He took her left hand in his right. "All right. I'm not so easy to persuade as that, but you have my attention, Anya. Time for your first real lesson. Come with me."

Anya followed, rubbing her throat. "My first real lesson?"

"Your mastery of Violet Bier of Sorrows Style is limited by your mastery of unarmed combat. As I said, you're a brawler. Not a bad brawler, given how much experience you've had, but you have little concept of forms or stances or any of that. You fight intuitively, which is not a bad thing in every respect, but it limits you." Chejop raised his hands. "It would take months to begin to teach you proper mundane martial arts the conventional way."

"So we're going to bypass that." Chejop nodded, and Anya swallowed hard. "The my-mind-to-your-mind bit." The old man pulled out a pair of seats. "How long?"

"Each session will take an hour. My joints have begun to bother me, which is not a promising sign. Age touches an Exalt's appearance lightly and their health almost not at all, till the end. Of course, I knew it was coming. We'll sit."

"Even knowing that I don't agree with you, you trust me enough to teach me?" She didn't begin to understand this man. Which made sense, she supposed.

"If I only taught those who agreed with me on every point, I'd have no students at all. Come now. And don't worry that I will reprogram you into an obedient faction member-this doesn't work that way." He sat down in one of the chairs. "You interest me. You appear just before my death, with a destiny that could not have been foreseen until you arrived in this world. Yet it must have been written in Samsara. You might be the world's doom, of course. It was foretold that my life would see the ending of two ages. Or you could just as easily be its savior, and I can't very well kill that, can I?"

"But you can try to decide which it'll be?" She sat facing him, their toes just touching. He extended his arms and took hold of hers above the wrist; she clasped his arms as well.

"I can. I think I should. Who else could?" He chanted a brief invocation in a language she didn't recognize. Sparks gathered, rising up around him, and began to flow toward her.

The world within his mind opened its gates and closed them behind her.

Fred breathed in. "Awesome," she said very softly. Sage of the Depths had simply laughed when she asked if this was really a good use of her powers.

"Do larger breasts make you feel more confident?" he had asked. She'd just nodded. "Then, aside from keeping track of how much essence you're using, why do you need to ask?"

Of course, there was more to prettying herself up than big tits, no matter what guys thought. Her butt had expanded to match, and her features had shifted a bit, and even her hair had developed a bit of natural curl. And too much boob would have made her a disaster.

The Sage hadn't seemed to notice. Perhaps he was gay, but he paid no attention that she could see to the young male Lunars either. She wasn't about to ask, lest she set off another brain-bleach inducing lecture about consent and the ability to speak with any animate life-form. She now knew more about the Scionborn than she had ever wanted to.

There were at least two dozen other new Lunars strolling about Luthe's lower decks right now. Something called a Grand Gathering had been called, and evidently Lunars were fairly r-selected-not many made it past their first few years, but those who did hung around for centuries. More would be here soon.

Fred slipped out of the cabin. She'd had to sneak out of her own quarters in roach form to avoid her adoring subjects-or her cringing ones, for that matter; the Shadow Swimmers in particular were terrified of her.

"-say the one who overthrew Leviathan is named Dreamer-of-Reason. He must be a powerful elder, but I've never heard of him." Fred winced. The dark young man in what amounted to swim trunks wasn't the first person she'd heard assume that she was some reclusive Lunar elder.

"He wouldn't be the first powerful hermit to come out of hiding," said the girl walking with him. Equally dark but with narrow eyes, she was probably in her late teens and wearing no more than he was. Fred was starting to get the idea that of all the Lunars in existence, she probably had the most body modesty. In the past day, she'd seen other Exalts wearing less than this or nothing at all. Many of them looked as if she wasn't the only one who'd augmented her looks, and a few weren't even identifiable as boys or girls in spite of their nudity. It wasn't about wrecked clothes; clothes just vanished when you changed. It could be a survivalism thing. Her original clothes had rotted off her in Pylea after her escape.

Should she-? No, she was who she was. If she could deal with other Lunars going naked, they could put up with her not.

Oh. They had spotted her watching. "Hi," she said weakly. "Fred. Here for the get-together."

"Renjin Shining Seas," the man said, smiling. "No deed name yet, or does it just embarrass you?"

"It does, kinda." Fred blushed. If they figured out who she was...

"Peleps Kolohi," said the woman. "Some people call me Jade Wave, but I've never been too comfortable with that myself. I don't guess you've met this Dreamer-of-Reason, have you? Sounds like a No-Moon, if you ask me. Powerful sorceror, maybe."

"Don't know a thing about them," Fred said as glibly as she could manage.

Kolohi frowned at her. "Why would you lie to me? You know him, don't you?" Shit! She must have some sort of lie detector going.

Fred closed her eyes and said squeakily, "I am him. Um, her."

Kolohi and Renjin stared at her for a moment before Renjin shook his head.

"And that embarrasses you?"

"I'm not some mighty warrior hero," Fred tried. "I'm a theoretical physicist who got lost in the woods. In, um, an alternate dimension full of demons who wanted me as a slave."

Kolohi finally nodded at that point. "Now I understand. You didn't do it for glory or territory. You felt sorry for my lost cousins here."

"I Exalted facing off against a friend over the slavery around here," Fred said truthfully. "A lot of the Dragonblooded are bad people, but the Luthea had nothing to do with that."

"Fighting slavery is pretty common among future Lunars," Kolohi agreed. "I was keeping Skullstone pirates from taking my people, not that they appreciated it after. But your friend...?"

"Also Exalted," Fred explained. "I couldn't get through to her any other way, so I took a swing at her."

Renjin's jaw dropped. "Good thing you did Exalt. She could have torn you apart. And here I didn't think you had the guts to have taken on Leviathan. How did you beat him, anyway? You're not an ancient sorceror. Are you?"

"I just outthought him," Fred said, face crimson again. "I worked my way up to the command center as a bug, then tricked him into moving Islebreaker for me. After that I had control of the city defenses and things got much easier."

Renjin and Kolohi stared at her so hard they missed the band of sharkpeople who came around the corner to their left. The leader's eyes fixed on Fred, and he snarled, "Traitorqueen!" The renegade Scionborn lifted crude guns to point at her.

"Oh shit!" Fred muttered, and flung her hands in front of her face.

A line of silk web, glinting silver in the overhead lights, flew from her palm and snared the nearest gun. She wasn't so startled she didn't think to yank it away from the sharkman, but it was a near thing.

Kolohi was growing larger, changing into something massive and scaly. Her war form, no doubt, something bulky, with a cutting beak.

Renjin just snarled at the oncoming Scionborn. For a moment Fred thought it was some strange kind of bravado, but the rebels nearest him broke and ran, dropping their weapons in terror.

Fred took advantage of the distraction to fling her line sideways, latching it to the wall. Spiderman gestures plainly weren't needed to make the webs go, but they helped her confidence. In moments there were tripwires everywhere.

Kolohi had finished changing. Larger than the sharkpeople, she slammed a massive fist into one's face while several more futilely opened fire. Crude bullets spanged off her armored torso.

The sharkmen's fury gave way to panic, and they attempted to flee, but the weblines all over the floor brought them crashing down on top of each other in a twitching heap. Kolohi bit into several throats while Renjin began finishing others off with his dagger. Fred hung back reluctantly. As they reached the last one, she held up her hand. "Stop." Renjin side-eyed her, but the pair stayed back. "You aren't the last, I'm guessing. Go back to your friends and tell them Dreamer-of-Reason kicked your butts without half trying. You can't win this, and I don't hate you. Go back to your homes and live in peace, and I'll see that you're not persecuted."

"Better than they deserve," Renjin said doubtfully as the lone sharkman scuttled away.

"I'm not going to repeat Leviathan's mistake. I'm seeing that specific atrocities get punished and the Luthea get good jobs as fast as they can be educated for them, but I'm not going to persecute Scionborn for being Scionborn."

Kolohi shook her head skeptically. "If you don't, you're just going to end up with Luthea doing the dirtiest work like before and being told that they're free now so they don't have any right to complain." She swung her massive head back and forth as if searching for more threats.

Renjin nodded. "Reconciling people with their oppressors is a fool's dream. You have to pick a side and stick to it."

Fred made a face. "You're basically saying that peace is impossible. If I do that, the next generation of Scionborn will grow up seeing the Luthea as their oppressors."

Renjin demurred. "They may see it that way, but that doesn't make it so. Justice is justice."

"I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree, because Luthe is my protectorate now." Fred didn't feel up to more confrontation just yet, not even the nonviolent kind. Kolohi just shrugged massively and began changing back. Renjin growled under his breath but said nothing. Abruptly Fred began to giggle as the tension broke.

"What?" Renjen asked.

"You wouldn't get it," Fred said, blushing a bit. Kolohi grumbled. "Oh, okay. We, um, match some of my people's heroic legends. The three of us are Spidergirl, Aquaman, and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle."

Her new friends looked blank. She had a lot to teach them.

Dawn knew better than to be here, back in the seedy god bar sitting on a barstool. This was Glory, after all. This was the crazy hellgoddess who drove people insane and tried to kill her to rip open a portal home.

But she didn't trust her. Right? This Glory didn't know her, had presumably never met her. And she was teaching Dawn to use her powers. If Dawn learned enough, she'd be able to protect herself, and it didn't seem like anyone else was going to be able to teach her. She wasn't Exalted, she was a raksha. Whatever that meant.

"Whatever you do, don't go around naked," Glory said, ignoring the nervous but bored entities that sat around them. "It hurts to do that out here in Creation. But you can change clothes, if you wanna. It only takes a second."

"Change...clothes?" The idea made Dawn twitchy. Glory was talking about something called an "assumption" that seemed to have something to do with her body and how it was created, but it was more than that. It sounded like it might include her entire identity, and the idea of taking off "Dawn Summers" and turning into someone else-or no one at all-was beyond creepy.

Most of all because a nagging little part of her didn't agree.

"Look. Being somebody's sister is like an outfit you put on one day. And you're really used to it, and there's nothing wrong with that. But you can also put on 'being somebody's lover' or 'being someone's grandpa'. Or you can put on 'being a ghost' or 'being fire' or all kinds of other things. Mortals only understand a little bit of that stuff, and they usually do it all wrong. They try to be a bunch of things at once and it just turns into a confusing blend of shrimp and catfish and horses and flowers and bricks. You? You can be nothing but shrimp." Glory cocked her head to one side. "Got it? Wait, I know. You have a boyfriend?"

Dawn looked at her feet. "No." She wished Xander would notice her, but he was too fixated on Anya. And now that they were both Exalted there was no way that would ever change.

"But you wish someone was. I see it. You know why that is? Because you're a sister. You're just a sister. And whether he means to or not, he cares for you, I bet. Like a sister." Glory pulled up her legs underneath her. "If you want to be his girlfriend, you need to take off 'being a sister' and put on 'being a girlfriend'."

"Okay." Dawn thought about that. "But if I do that, won't I be everyone's girlfriend? I don't want to be Buffy's girlfriend. That would be weird."

"Why? You're not really related. And you wouldn't feel like her sister anymore. But no, you could be 'someone's girlfriend', and you'd be their girlfriend and not Buffy's. Other people'd still see you as hot...kind of a potential girlfriend...the way this guy sees you as a sister even though you're not his." A bartender passed by with a tray of drinks. Glory snatched two and handed one to Dawn. The bartender flinched and tried not to look at them. "Here ya go. Or, you know, you could choose 'be lord of the lions' instead. Or whatever. They're all in your wardrobe somewhere."

"But if I shouldn't undress here..." Dawn hesitated. She could just...redefine herself that easily?

"Look, you're right. Maybe you're not ready for that. Tell you what, let's try something simpler. You got anything fun on you? Armor, swords, cute pets?" Glory peered at her. "Aw, what a lovely widdle kiddy-cat."

"Huh?"

"She's hanging around you. She's cute, but she needs you to materialize her." She examined Dawn's ankles. "I could do it, but you wouldn't learn nothin'."

Dawn stared. She couldn't see a thing. The only kitty-cat around was the purely imaginary Miss Kitty Fantastico. Tara and Willow had talked about getting a kitten but decided there was too much risk of it getting hurt in the constant fighting. It was easy to imagine the little black kitten playing around her feet, batting around a ball of yarn, but she wasn't real. She'd never...been...

A ball of red yarn rolled out from behind Dawn's left foot. With a rustle of little claws and padded paws on the floor, a tiny black kitten darted after it and caught it between two adorable forepaws. Dawn gasped.

"Aww. Toldja. What's her name?" Glory bent down and gently picked up the ball of fuzz, scritching behind its ears.

"I...I..."

"Not you, silly. This wittle pretty kitty."

"Miss...Kitty...um, Fantastico." The kitten glanced at her briefly and resumed its purring as Glory stroked its back. "I created her?"

"Weeelll. Technically, I guess we don't know who created her. But you brought her into Creation. Anyone can see that." Glory tossed her to Dawn, who almost didn't catch her for fear she'd become a yowling ball of claws at the sudden motion. But Miss Kitty merely stretched out her legs in midair and landed peaceably in Dawn's grip. "She's clearly yours. You might have armor, too. Or weapons, or all kinds of other things. They'll manifest according to your current costume, so you'll keep looking like little sister. It's not a bad aesthetic. You could just tweak it a little to start out. Be Buffy's big sister for a while? Sorry, I don't know too much about teaching these things. Most people just kinda know."

Dawn's insides were full of skittery things by now. Stroking Miss Kitty should have helped. Kitten. Kitten good. Please. Except that Miss Kitty had literally not existed except in her mind until five minutes ago. Even Buffy didn't seem to be able to do that.

Even Buffy couldn't give life. And she could.

She didn't have to let it change who she was.

"I've got to get things set up so my friends won't be scared for me. But I need to learn. Is there anywhere else we can go?"

And if, at the end of this, she decided this Glory was just as much a monster as the one who'd tried to kill her, she could do something else Buffy had never done and beat down her hellgod butt.

Xander sat at the top of the tower and watched Fred with her newfound friends down below. "She's a lucky girl," he murmured.

"How do you mean?" Nelumbo asked. He was trying to avoid her since remembering Anya, but he couldn't seem to get away from her entirely. She'd taken to wearing longer clothes, especially when he was around, though she couldn't seem to get the hang of not looking good in them. Or maybe she didn't really want to.

"Fred's got other people to teach her. To tell her what being a Lunar means. I'm supposedly more powerful than she is, but I've got no one. Shaia lured me out here with promises that she could teach me, but then she stranded me on an island and bugged out. And then I forgot who she was. If I ever get my hands on her..." He halted. Xander wasn't sure what he would do to her, but it wouldn't be pretty.

"You seem reasonably clever at coming up with new uses of your power on your own," Nelumbo said, "as long as someone reminds you that it's possible. I suppose that I could teach you supernatural martial arts. They're among the relatively few powers that aren't linked to a particular type of Exalt so fully that others can't learn them. I could even teach you Solar Hero Style, if you wanted."

Xander leaned back against the wall. "I wouldn't object," he admitted, "but that still leaves me with some major gaps." To this Nelumbo could only nod her assent. "I don't know if I'm ever going to get back to my own world-I hope so-but I found out there that I like to build things. I'm good with my hands. I've been helping repair Luthe's ships, but I have to wonder if maybe I can do more than that."

Nelumbo smiled more warmly than he had ever seen on her before, even in the throes of passion. "Are you still sure you don't want to return to Autochthonia with me? You resonate with the Great Maker himself. You could be much more than a simple construction worker."

"I don't know," Xander admitted. "I worry that I'm too far down the rabbit hole as it is. But I can't rule it out, I guess. In the meanwhile, people tell me that Solars built the greatest wonders of the First Age, even the buildings. Maybe I can do some of that myself, y'know? It's funny, in my world construction work isn't something smart people are supposed to do."

Nelumbo pondered that, tapping her thigh. "I suppose I see it. Those who plan the buildings must have education, but not everyone who builds. If you thought only of the latter... In Autochthonia, we-the Exalted, I mean-are the cities and our charms the buildings, so it's not something I thought of a great deal."

"I should be down there with her." Nelumbo stared briefly. Oh. He'd jumped subjects again. "We weren't close friends or anything, but we're links to each other's home. Only, she insisted this thing was Lunar business and I wasn't welcome there."

"This world's Exalted turned on each other long ago," Nelumbo said, her undertone bitter. "It's hard to imagine. My world has its failures, certainly, but the Exalted as a whole support one another. Even Adamants like me, who were made to operate in secret, back up the others."

"I wish I knew how it happened. You'd think there'd be people at least trying to put things back together, but nobody trusts anybody else any more. Last night I was telling this story from home to some of the cityfolk and all of a sudden Sage is staring at me like I've gone bonkers. Tells me not to make up tales." He tried to recall the words; his memory had improved just like everything else, it seemed. "Remember your futile attack on the Great Lord of the Dark! Remember his counterstroke! Remember! Even now the Hundred Companions are tearing the world apart, and every day a hundred men more join them!" Idly, Xander wondered if he'd ever find out how that series ended. "And the Sage of the Depths said, 'We investigated that long ago. The Yozis did nothing to corrupt the Solars.' I tried explaining that it was just a story, that it had nothing to do with your world, but he told me not to bring it up again."

"Who knows?" Nelumbo said. "It could be some distorted memory of the Primordial War. But as far as I know, the Sage is right. Autochthon is smart, but he makes mistakes. Everything he makes is always bleeding-edge, and there's no reason the Exaltations would have been different. Ours are the product of a more refined process, but he no longer takes an interest."

She dismissed it so easily, Xander had to wonder. But then, she was the one who actually knew something about this world. "I guess I should get back to the stuff I'm good at. I'm heading down to the shipyards. Feel free to come with." He didn't want her to, not really, but odds were she would.

Nelumbo shrugged and followed.

"…slays king, ruins town, and beats high mountain down," Fred finished.

"A deathknight," Renjin suggested after a beat.

"Um," Fred said. "Not really. I mean, that's not the answer."

"And why not?" Renjin asked. "Doesn't that answer meet the conditions?"

"It's Metagaos," Kolohi argued. "Deathknights don't eat that much."

"Time," said a voice from behind Fred as she shifted her position on the bench. "The riddle is clearly meant to be a metaphor in accordance with the spirit of the game. The answer is time."

"Point goes to the new girl," Fred said. The girl who had come up behind her wore little beyond her moonsilver tattoos. She was small, slender, and flexible, with bronzed skin and long straight black hair. She looked about sixteen. Fucking Lunars. Of course, sixteen-year-olds would likely go naked if they were allowed, but they shouldn't be allowed. Responsible adults should tell her off. Fred was too anxious to try yet, but she would if it came to that.

"Dreamer-of-Reason?" the new girl queried. "I heard you were looking for someone to teach you sorcery.""Sort of?" Fred folded her arms. "Sage thinks I should. I'm still not sure it's a good idea, but I'm willing to try."

"Then I'm willing to teach you," the girl.

Must be another prodigy. Or choosing to look like a child but go around naked. Fucking Lunars! Maybe she was from some jungle tribe though. "Call me Fred," she said. "I'm not used to the other yet."

"Well met," the girl said. "I'm Roxy." Cool. A nice modern name!

"Wow," Anya said when the room stopped spinning. "I know kung fu."

"Is that what it's called?" Chejop said mildly. "I'm not familiar with the term."

"Eh, it's not even a real martial arts style. Stupid British misunderstood the word. But it's a saying now." If she was going to be a valkyrie, even in the Maidens' jokes, it was about time she learned proper fighting. "So what's the price on these lessons?"

"Price? No price," Chejop started. "Wait. No deception, Anya. I hope to gain your trust and loyalty, and yes, you may construe that as a price if you like."

"Thank you for saying that up front," Anya said gratefully. And what if he didn't get it? "Key to good customer relations: honesty about pricing."

Chejop's lips tightened in the way that meant he was trying to maintain his serious sifu face. "It's time for you to pass beyond dabbling, Anya. Do as I do, and I will show you Violet Bier of Sorrows Form."

"Planning to teach me the whole style?"

"I hope to," the man who wanted to kill her confided. "But I have been prevailed upon. If you want to know Throne Shadow Style, no one is better suited to teach you than I."

"All right," Anya said determinedly. "You're on."

"Dawn," Tara said with a worried frown. "We know you've been slipping out. Where have you been?"

Willow sat down opposite her. "No one's angry," she said urgently. "Just worried."

"I found a library," Dawn explained. "If this place is so dangerous, don't we need to know all we can about it?"

"It's a good idea," Tara admitted. "You should have told us first, though. You of all people ought to know not all gods are friendly."

"I know," Dawn said solemnly. There really was a library. With luck, she could lose them in the stacks. Their reaction to seeing Glory would be even worse than here had been; they could fight her. Not that she blamed them.

But she needed to know what she could do. She'd already been used once to almost end the world. That couldn't happen again. Dawn never intended to be helpless again. Not ever.

A/N: "Roxy" is in fact 1500 years old or so. There will be no sexy scenes or detailed descriptions of her, but canonically she does go naked.

This is probably the last chapter before I go on hiatus to move.