Once upon a time/
there was some girl who was born into war/
she killed her friends, and brought the hammer down (she saved the world)/
she lived forever and a day and got everything she ever dreamed/
she ruled a world/
once upon a time.
Hours and seasons rushed over Anya as she whirled through the streets of Yu-Shan, while the Maidens and the Sun and Luna all jockeyed for position. Did they even notice the oddity? Rumor had it that Ignis Divine had risen when Willow Exalted and shouted for Autochthon to come fix the Games, but when the sun-disc had returned to normal he'd taken his popcorn, so to speak, and gone back to screwing around.
Once upon a time/
there was some guy who loved a girl/
assassins killed her, and he lost his mind/
he slew the bad guys, sank their city/
made himself a tyrant over all he could survey/
he was the good guy/
once upon a time/
Through it all Ayesha Ura just smiled as if Anya were making polite conversation. Didn't she notice anything unusual? Or maybe sometimes in epic adventures the people of this world just randomly burst into song.
You live your life/
happily ever after/
You live the dream/
fairy tales and laughter/
You live the storybooks/
and one day you start askin'/
How do you live/
Once upon a time/
there was a girl who cursed her lover/
the demons came and carried her away (she liked it fine)/
she outlived everyone she knew/
she lost her powers, fell in love, fell out of her dimension/
she killed an empire, ruled the world/
she got new powers, lost her world/
how do you go on when your time is gone? (that's what I'm askin')
how do you live after your/
once upon a time?/
wish we could meet and I could ask her/
how do you live your whole life after/
once upon a time?
"She wasn't...how do you put it?...all that and a bag of chips," Ayesha said. "The Empress was a complicated woman. Not evil, at least not always, but...she had a thing for power. And she got it in abundance, and perhaps not for the best. You two would have gotten along, but I don't know if she could've helped you much."
"We'd have gotten along?" Anya wondered if the Empress was actually dead or in hiding somewhere, but she doubted they'd get to meet.
"Like a house on fire," Ayesha said. "I don't say that lightly. She didn't have very many contemporaries, and she'd known us all a good long while, as enemies if not as friends. I think we were all...a little bored with each other, honestly. You're fresh blood, and at the same time old enough to have been around the block a few times. Think how rare that is."
"I guess it must be." Anya considered her own friends. Aside from the Scoobies, virtually all were immortal demons. She was closest to Halfrek, she thought. They weren't the same age, but there was a...perspective shift involved.
"Do you know why Chejop empowered you the way he did? I mean the specifics; we all know he wanted to spend more time teaching you."
Anya had thought that one over a thousand times. "It filled in some gaps in my abilities. I can heal myself. I can kill with a touch, and, y'know...Ending. But on the bigger scale...Ayesha, the Empire's not going to fall tomorrow. Itshouldn't fall tomorrow. People depend on it. On the Immaculate faith, too. Maybe they have to end, but the faster they go the worse it'll be for everyone."
"So he tied you to the Order." Ayesha scowled. "He gave you the responsibility of teaching Immaculates the Dragons' arts."
"Yup. To me, a Solar's fiancee. And you shouldn't forget, Ayesha: the Dragons really are holy. The Order is a problem, but it's not a monster. It teaches good stuff with just a little bad mixed in." Anya hesitated for a comparison. "Like a gift with purchase."
Ayesha chuckled a bit at that. "Everything's economics to you, isn't it?"
Anya grinned. "Everything's money. Economics is just window-dressing."
*****
Left right left/
march all day/
march all night/
go this way/
we don't get tired/
we do get paid/
never thought/
it'd be this way.
"Pit trap!" shouted the soldier in front. Very few had died in the Anathema's dishonorable traps, but they delayed marching and broke up the battle lines. The closer they came to Gem, the more traps they encountered. Deadfalls. Ambushes. Hostile beasts along the trail. In one spot the roads had been shifted to lead into a dangerous Fire-aspected demesne. In several others, bargains had been struck with disgruntled gods or elementals. Buffy-or, Mnemon said, more likely her advisors-seemed to have turned the entire desert against them.
"Ants crawling out of the pit," someone reported. "They don't look like natural animals."
"Wyld-touched?" The commander was taking no chances.
"Er...maybe? Too big, and they have metallic shells."
"Shit," the commander groaned. "Detour as far as possible. Anyone who gets bit goes back to the rear lines." Damn mercury ants. Whose idea had these things been anyway?
"Sir," an advance scout reported hastily, "the enemy seems to have abandoned some sort of devices ahead."
"Hands off them," the commander warned. This was all covered in The Thousand Correct Actions. "Leave that shit to the Dragon-Blooded."
It took another ten minutes before the screaming started.
*****
"I'm not saying that won't help, Will. I'm saying we have artillery."
"B-but...nifty lighting bolts!" Willow groaned. Sure, she needed to start building cool stuff or learning necromancy, but that wasn't going to help in this fight. It was too late for that.
"If you're determined to help, figure out how to change me back! I can't inspire the troops looking like this." A week had passed, and Buffy was still a muppet. Willow had some ideas on fixing it, but only ideas.
"Can't you?" Weeping Raiton sneered. "Pathetic. You half-use the powers of the Yozis, who themselves are but a pale reflect-"
"Shut. Up." Buffy snapped. Emerald fire flared in her eyes, and Raiton did, with a casual shrug. "I've spent five years of my life kicking undead ass. Don't make me go all stakey on your undead gods, because I swear I will end them too."
"Be my guest," Raiton said, still sneering. "Shutting up now."
"Shaia? You got anything special?" Buffy opened her palms to the Sidereal.
"I know a good bit of the Sidereal martial art called the Quicksilver Hand of Dreams," Shaia said. "It's powerful, yet might have been better used one-on-one."
"Do what you can. Raiton? Planning to join in the carnage?"
"Will you fight by the side of a hekatonchiere?" Raiton gave an enigmatic half-smile. "I will happily summon one for you."
"Will it destroy the city?" Buffy was, thankfully, still in it for the right reasons. Mostly.
"I can guarantee only that she will fight. She was power in the ecstacy of death. She lived seven lives at once. She was god to the gods. I know her true name. I know she can annihilate such as Mnemon with a gesture."
"Will. She. Destroy. The city?" Buffy slammed her hands down on the table in front of Raiton. The metallic green glow was building around her.
"Illyria will do as I direct."
"She had better. Get summoning. And if she kills so much as one citizen of Gem, I go medieval on your ass."
"Do you think that you can defeat me, you insignificant mite?" Raiton rose from the table, rearing up well over six feet high.
"Been there. Done that. Got the 'I stopped the Old Ones and all I got was this lousy t-shirt' t-shirt." Buffy took hold of Raiton's mask by the nose and pulled it an inch away from her face before releasing it to snap back. "Help or get out, Toucan Sam."
"We will meet in battle," Raiton said without inflection. "We will fight, and I will cast you into the Maw of Oblivion as a sacrifice." She turned and strolled from the room.
"Are you just going to let her go?" Tara asked. "She could..."
"She could do a lot of things," Buffy acknowledged. "I don't think she will. She just wants to max out the casualties."
"Should you trust her, then? This...Illyria sounds like b-bad news." Tara fumbled for Willow's hand.
Shaia jumped in before Buffy could say anything reassuring. "Any hekatonchiere is bad news. Some are the Neverborn's nightmares. Some are the ghosts of Primordial behemoths. The most powerful are the dead souls of the Primordials themselves."
"You know anything about this 'Illyria'?" Buffy fiddled with her hair, still looking pale and sickly in her own light.
"Only that it's unlikely to be her actual name," Shaia admitted. "There's not much time, but I can try to get some information for you. That phrase 'power in the ecstasy of death' sounds familiar, and if she truly lived seven lives at once that could make her a dead third-circle. Possibly. I'd wonder what became of her eighth soul, but...Primordial War."
Buffy glanced at Willow. Willow smiled at Tara. Tara turned to Shaia and said, "Soon you'll be talking just like us."
*****
"Lost a company to the west." Hadamar bowed deeply to his liege, who shook her head irritably. "Fanglords examined and distributed the protective equipment left behind,but it was subtly defective."
Mnemon gritted her teeth. "She's trying to make us switch back and forth between following the axioms and violating them. Trying to confuse us."
The tent was spare, lacking all trace of luxury. Mnemon would feast, and have her pick of the soldiers who caught her eye, but she left no obvious sign in her quarters. She paced up and down the short length of it, only the regulation five feet longer than an ordinary soldier's. "The enemy wants to destroy our discipline. All commanders who violate the rules must be penalized equally whether they succeed or fail. Creativity is no excuse if it falls into the greater trap." There was a moment of hesitation. "If someone does succeed while keeping either the letter or the spirit of regulations, reward them appropriately."
"The Anathema is wily," Hadamar admitted.
"I knew that as soon as I saw her preparing for a siege," Mnemon scoffed. "A child would not try to hold Gem this way. She has some deeper plan. That much is obvious."
"If I may ask...?" Mnemon nodded. "My lady, is she following the direct orders of the Yozis? I have heard regarding their intellect-"
Mnemon leaned forward with a snarl. "The Yozis are broken things. They are clever, undoubtedly, but they cannot outmaneuver the Princes of the Earth. But to answer your question, no, I believe we are dealing with a spoiled brat of an Anathema who thinks herself wiser than she is. She has enmeshed herself in a web of doublethink. I guarantee you, she has already lost."
*****
"Five hours on the summoning," DoppelBuffy reported. "There's a company or two heading in with a battering ram, but they're going straight for the rockfall."
"Good so far," Buffy acknowledged. "Have we got the square clear?"
"It's clear," Tara reported. "I don't understand-"
"You'll see. Shaia, any messages?"
The Sidereal jumped. "Messages? Why would I have any messages?" DoppelBuffy still wasn't sure how her twin had managed to recruit a Sidereal Exalt to the cause, but something odd was going on there, if only she could work out what.
The company with the ram sang as they marched toward the gateway. DoppelBuffy couldn't make out the words, but she heard the music fall into chaos as they blundered into the rockfall trap.
A filmy-winged thing fluttered its way into the throne room and landed on Shaia's shoulder. "Sulumor says she's in position to open a pit in the courtyard on your signal. She seems a bit puzzled you've waited this long."
"Let her be. My strategy's none of her business." Well, Buffy didn't seem confused that Shaia knew Sulumor. Maybe she'd introduced them? No, that didn't seem right.
"Willow, that new trick you've got. Wanna use it to help me out?"
Willow could only frown in confusion. "I don't see what use that is in a fight. Sure, it'd help Spike and Angel but-"
"Look out the window, Will. See that big sandy duney area behind Mnemon's lines? Spike's already there. Think you can teleport yourself and Angel over there?"
"That's a long way, Buffy-"
"You're a big girl, Willow. You don't need me to hold your hand anymore. Can you make it?"
Willow stared out the window. "Are you sure you just want me to take Angel? If I'm going to ferry people out there I may as well take a company of soldiers."
"No! Just you and Angel. I promise there's a reason."
Willow threw up her hands. "Okay. It'll take a few minutes."
Buffy hopped up onto DoppelBuffy's lap as she sat in the throne. "No rush."
*****
"I'd leave those alone if I were you." Iron Siaka grumbled. "For one thing, you're on the Western Convention now. Leave the South to its own Convention. For another, those guys are bad news."
Anya scratched behind her ear. "So the entire Five-Score Fellowship just collectively decided not to try making peace between them and anyone else at all?"
Iron Siaka slammed her fist into the wall, shaking it. "Can you never just leave well enough alone?" She'd given the hearthstone back to Nazri and was looking for the least troublesome way to break the bond between her and Anya, sacred to Venus or not.
"If I could, I'd be Bronze Faction, and the world would keep muddling down towards catastrophe. Because that's what we were Exalted for, right?"
"Fine!" Siaka spat. "You want to screw with the fate of the Dune People? Go ahead. Good luck making peace with cannibals who have to hide from the Sun's light, Gold Star."
"Um." Anya thought about that for a moment and then, infuriatingly, burst into laughter.
Siaka slammed the door and walked away.
*****
Willow and Angel materialized in a swirl of impenetrable darkness. To her eyes-and probably Angel's-the black pall was an unending blizzard of symbols to join the perpetual sandstorm that raged around her and never quite went away. A couple of days ago, the sun would have pierced it, but now it was a pool of unbroken shadow almost two hundred feet across.
She swayed, trying to regain her bearings, and Spike burst from the sand in vamp face, wearing nothing but a loincloth. Laughing, he yelled out, "Feeding time!"
All around him the dunes burst open like an explosion in a flour mill. Only without the fire, of course. Then they were immersed in a sea of fishbelly flesh and pink eyes.
"Don't touch the witch or we all burn!" Angel shouted. "She's our cover!" It must have killed him to be doing this, but Willow saw only grim determination in his expression. "They're human," he murmured as he took her hand and began pulling her forward. "They have a chance at redemption." Since when did he not?
Screams rose from the rearguard of the Realm forces as Dune People tore into them from behind. Bodies began to fall...most of them Dune Folk, but here and there soldiers were being pulled down. Part of Willow coldly assessed the distraction; the rest of her wondered if Buffy realized how many people were dying to help her win.
Bodies fell. Willow sighed. Bodies rose again.
*****
"Pull back from the city," Mnemon ordered reluctantly. She enjoyed battle, but she enjoyed winning more. There were no telling how many other ambushes and traps the Despot had ready to spring on her. "They want to fight. I say we hold the line and let them starve."
"Should we look for other Dune Folk encampments?" asked Mnemon Czaguna. "We could keep tripping over them for days."
Mnemon thought that over. Perhaps it would only waste time. But if there were many more of them out there, waiting for the cover of night to attack... "Yes, send out scouting parties behind our lines. Make sure each has an Earth aspect." Better to be prudent.
"Pressing the battle in the Dragons' name/
Till victory is ours/
Raising the banners of Earth and Flame/
We prosecute our wars/
Showing Forsaken they fight in vain/
Onward my soldiers, ensure my reign/
Left, right, left, right/
Till victory is mine!"
*****
"Now I'm here to play/
And I've come in style/
It's a lovely day/
Makes me wanna smi-i-ile/
I come from the imagination/
And I'm here strictly by your invocation/
So what do you say/
Come and dance a while!"
Smiling, Buffy hopped down from her double's lap and sashayed up to the blue-suited demon, her eyes gazing upward into his as she took his hand.
"I called you here to marry me/
I know that's always been your thing/
The smoke will rise/
To blind Terrestrial eyes/
The sparks we strike don't even sting!"
Beaming, if a bit uncertain about his diminutive date, Sweet spun Buffy around and tossed her into the air.
"Yeah I know what you feel girl/
I know just what you feel girl!"
"The fires of hell, they burn for me/
And I walk through the wall of flame/
The furnace glows/
The grisly reaper mows/
But I can beat him at his game."
Buffy and the demon paced each other, back and forth in front of the throne where DoppelBuffy still slumped. Tara, oddly, seemed to be providing her only backup. By contrast, Sweet had evidently been joined by five mannequin demons, seemingly made of ordinary wood.
"You brought me down and doomed this town/
So when we blow this scene-/"
"I sear my name in history/
The Slayer who betrayed the cause!"
"Back we will go to my kingdom below/
And you will be my queen!"
"I'll say 'I do,'/
And when the fight is through/
We'll go and consummate the clause!"
Sweet burst into laughter and swung Buffy through the air. She went up a puppet; when her feet touched the floor she was flesh again. Her heart beat; her lungs pumped air. She'd definitely made worse calls than this.
*****
Sulumor raised her hands over the courtyard as the signal arrived. Buffy Summers puzzled her. She claimed to see the Dune People as equal to other humans, yet was willing to toss away their lives in a futile distraction. True, Sulumor had made no objection; she herself was greater than her people. It was merely confusing.
Her powers continued growing, though not as fast as Buffy's, and she was not here solely to bring the forces at her command. Sulumor passed her hands over the courtyard, and the ground crumbled away, opening into a great pit. Skittering, screeching, iridescent locusts boiled up from the depths.
She cared nothing for the city. But her masters and Buffy's demanded its survival, so it would not starve.
*****
Willow's lightning curled around, striking down Dragon-Blooded and mortals alike, draining their essence only to fuel more lightning. She was too low on energy to teleport back to the palace, though, and wasn't gaining much from the exchange.
Willow seized a man with a chilly,windy aura by the throat. It stung, but wasn't powerful enough yet to really hurt her. "We can do this the easy way," she said, "or I can eat you alive." She ought to be able to drain off his excess magcal energies; she had almost been able to do that as a mortal.
She bared her fangs and leaned in, her right hand drawn back, lightning crackling around it. The Dragon-Blood shuddered, and she felt energy being siphoned from him to her. That was better.
She could let him live. Maybe she should let him live. But this was war.
Her fangs sank into his neck.
*****
Here she came.
Suddenly Gem could survive a siege. Mnemon knew it. Mnemon was coming with her siege towers and her Dragon-Blooded and her ancient high-tech weapons.
Buffy strolled out onto the balcony, trailed by Tara, Shaia, and Sweet. "I'm going to have to fight her," she mused. "I'm going to have to kick her ass until she stops getting up."
"Can you even do that?" Tara asked. Full of concern as always. She was gonna get premature wrinkles. "She's a Terrestrial, sure, but she's old and powerful and she's got an army with her."
"Her army's going to be busy," Buffy explained. Sure enough, lances of green fire and washes of dark energy were bursting forth from the mountain walls of her city, alongside arrows and catapulted stones. The helltech wouldn't last long, but it wouldn't need to. Also..."ETA on Illyria?"
"Half an hour," Shaia reported. "Are you really planning to let Raiton summon that...monstrosity? The best scholarship I can locate says Illyria was a dead fetich soul. She could probably wipe out both armies with a flick of her...tentacles or fingers or whatever she has."
"I'm going to do what I have to do," Buffy responded. With that, she vaulted the retaining wall and began to run down the palace wall.
She had an appointment to keep.
*****
The Anathema was coming.
Mnemon knew very well that much of the Immaculate dogma was a sham. If she had it to design all over again herself, perhaps she would use Anathema as pawns rather than kill them. But she didn't. And by all accounts, Buffy Summers truly was a tool of the Yozis. She had no qualms whatsoever about facing the girl, neither moral nor practical.
Buffy came closer, anima shimmering and bursting into sickly green-gold light that shimmered off the brass armor of her second skin. Even Mnemon's insides quivered at the sight. With each step Buffy grew larger, and larger still, until she towered over Mnemon like some Primordial behemoth, her loose robe shredding. Mnemon allowed her lip to curl into a sneer as the ground trembled. Here at last came Gem's army behind the Anathema, large, yes,but a ragged band against the Realm's legions.
"My la-a-a..." The warning warbled to a halt as a huge tentacled creature materialized on the battlefield off to Mnemon's left, though still roughly in the direction of the city. The legions began to turn, painfully slow as if caught in a nightmare, and as they did so the monster scythed them down. It was not as large as some creatures she had fought, but it was as large as the Despot and surely more powerful.
Mnemon began to turn toward the greater threat, but a brass foot slammed into her, and she was forced to brace herself against horrific impact. She held position as the Anathema stared. So this was how it was to be.
Well, if the Anathema wanted a duel, Mnemon would give her one to remember the rest of her life. "Die," she grated, and raised her daiklaive.
*****
Buffy's foot should have sent Mnemon flying, but the woman who would be Empress braced herself as a brass appendage as big as her chest crashed into her and held position, though her feet sank a few inches into the baked desert earth. If Buffy was brass, Mnemon was hardly distinguishable from marble. She spun her giant sword about like a twirled toothpick and tried to drive it in, sparking from Buffy's heel. Not for the first time, Buffy wished she could layer another set of armor over this one, but armor grated painfully on her brazen skin.
Mnemon was a Terrestrial, but she was older than Angel, far more experienced than Buffy, and supported by her personal bodyguard even with the distraction of Illyria drawing the rest of the army's attention. Buffy had no real options here. She sank deep into the core of herself and searched for more power.
What flooded her was hate. Hate for Mnemon. Contempt for the woman's ambition, disgust for her callous disregard of her subjects, fury at her opposition not just to Buffy but to heroes in general. Mnemon wanted to rule the Realm? Buffy would stop her, break her, humiliate her before her legions. She was in every way greater than this little upstart.
Buffy seized a great lance-ish thing from the back of a troop transport, wrenching it from its moorings, and found the trigger as she drove it into Mnemon's gut. Mnemon held her position, ever so precisely, as she fell over prone, breastplate unmarred but smoking.
*****
Mnemon climbed to her feet. Her belly felt covered in bruises, but no real harm had been done her. She would have to be more careful; she had underestimated this Anathema's ingenuity, and for all Mnemon's power there were strengths she could not match.
Buffy brought down a weapon she wielded like a twig in one hand, a daikalbar of corrupted jade, surprisingly simple and elegant in its design. The axeblade forced Mnemon to dance nimbly aside, evading it with all her skill. Though the disproportion of her size made Buffy's motions look as awkward as a boy poking an anthill with a stick, her precision was impeccable. Mnemon's bodyguard emerged from the behemoth's slowing effect just in time to engage Buffy's mercenaries, whose numbers made up for their lesser skill and power, at least for the moment. Superior teamwwork could not save Mnemon this time.
Streamers of energy coiled around Weeping Sword of Sorrow, and Mnemon lunged forward. The Five-Dragon Wrath technique...skittered off Buffy's armored skin in a shower of sparks, wasted. Mnemon cursed out loud, a pair of nonsense syllables she'd heard from a Sidereal advisor, earning only the Anathema's startled laughter.
"Didn't anyone ever tell you? He's supposed to be one of the good guys." Buffy's massive fist pierced Mnemon's crystalline anima and slapped her to the ground, but did her no real harm. "As in, not on your side."
"I care nothing for your mythology, Anathema." It had to be that. Or perhaps some other Anathema obscure enough that Mnemon hadn't heard of him. A suitable curse. "And none of you are 'good guys'. The very best of you are still rebels against the Realm and good order. You, Despot, are far from the best-though you did, at least, give me the excuse I needed to annex Gem at last."
Buffy bared her teeth and lashed out. Mnemon batted the daikalbar aside, if barely. There was more than one way to win a fight.
*****
"I guess if someone were going to take Gem from me, you at least look the part, Miss Marble." Mnemon infuriated her, and it wasn't just the trouble Buffy was having with quipping at someone totally outside her culture. The hatred that was fueling her also filled her with irrational rage.
Mnemon only laughed at her. Smug bitch! She was going to wipe that smile off the woman's face. "Gem has always been part of the Realm. My mother merely never saw fit to enforce her claim. I, on the other hand, take what I want. Which makes you the perfect excuse."
Buffy dodged the quick flurry of blows that came at her, and swung the Scythe in an attempt to catch Mnemon across the throat. "Want, take, have? I've heard..." The red rage behind her eyes flickered, shimmered... "...that line..." ...transformed. "...before." Damn it, she was far too large to give that woman the response she deserved. Buffy's legs quivered. The Scythe...was it small enough? Sure, it'd be rough, but Mnemon was Exalted. She could take it.
Panting heavily, Buffy let the new power go. The hate vanished at once and took the horrific darkness and brutality with it, but she still wanted Mnemon as desperately as she had wanted to beat the Terrestrial down before the fight began. "You...you don't realize what I nearly..."
"Oh, I realize," Mnemon sneered. "I knew you well enough to know you wouldn't do it." White and red currents of energy swirled around her fist, and Buffy took a massive blow full in the chest. "You're soft, Summers. You haven't got the will to do what it takes. You'll fight, you'll accept darkness from your allies, but you're a hero in your own mind. You judge yourself by a standard none of us are meant to live by." A rain of blows forced Buffy to hurl herself aside. "Whereas I...I do whatever I must."
And she ducked beneath a supply wagon.
Buffy heaved the conveyance over, but Mnemon was already darting from one vehicle to the next, both exploiting their cover and heading deeper into Illyria's rippling time distortion.
"You can't hide from-"
"Hide?" Mnemon laughed. White energy swirled up her legs and through her aura, sucked up from the ground itself. "Momentarily, I suppose." She clenched her left hand into a fist. "One hour, Despot Buffy. Your city has one hour to live. Enjoy your reign."
She turned and ran directly toward Illyria, time bending in her wake.