Disclaimer: Lynette Vaughn, Bonita Juarez, Mrs. Krueger, and Cameron Kim are mine. The Buffy characters are Joss Whedon's; the Daria characters are Glenn Eichler's.
X X X X X
Dr. Lynette Vaughn lay in her bed in the Hyperion, thinking about the events of the day. She'd known as soon as she'd seen the story in the morning LA Times that the day was going to be complicated; if she'd known how complicated --
No, she was forced to admit, she wouldn't have done anything differently. She couldn't have. For most of her professional life she'd tried to make sure that prisoners didn't screw the system; along the way, she'd discovered that it was just as much a part of who she was not to let someone get screwed by the system. She wouldn't let a prisoner get away with pretending to a mental illness they didn't have; she also wouldn't give up on one who was actually, genuinely, afflicted. Wrong was wrong, either way.
And that, ultimately, had led her here. Because she couldn't let Faith Lehane get jobbed by Amy Barksdale and Carla Fisk. Because she was trying to save someone who deserved to be saved. Because of who she was.
Because of all of that, she had now been plunged into a world of supernatural creatures that paralleled and supplemented the human one -- a world where narrowly prevented apocalypses were a yearly occurrence. And now she needed to figure out what she was going to do about it.
Revealing the secret was out, and not because no one would believe her. She'd given her word. Lynette realized that keeping one's word was considered a bit outdated these days, but she liked to think hers still meant something.
Pretending she didn't know about it was also out. That would have been the equivalent of a little kid sticking his fingers in his hears and yelling "LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" at the top of his lungs, and it was not only mentally unhealthy, it was undignified.
That left her a choice between simple acknowledgement, while still living her life as best she could; and incorporating it somehow into her life. She had no idea which option she was going to take, yes. She'd taken Angel being a vampire calmly because hysteria would have been pointless. Anyway, the science of the situation demanded the conclusion. She was no Scully, to frantically explain away things by whatever slender thread of dubious scientific worth she could come up with.
Lynette knew one thing, though: She was going to have to talk to Faith before she made her decision.
She didn't think she was capable of doing what Angel and his co-workers at Angel Investigations did; despite her black belt, she didn't think she was up to the challenge. If her life depended on it, she could fight; but she couldn't see herself seeking out the battles.
But if Faith or Daria needed her, she'd be there. She wasn't sure if either of them would; combined, the two of them seemed perfectly capable of taking care of themselves.
Until then, all she could do was try to get some sleep.
X X X X X
Daria's instincts, unhoned though they were, kicked in, and she immediately rolled out of the bunk into the body of the woman reaching for her throat. The woman fell down, sprang to her feet, and . . .
Disappeared? What the hell?
Daria immediately kicked the space where the woman had been standing, and felt nothing. Terrific. Vampires were real, she was supposed to kill them, and now she was being attacked in the middle of a damn prison by either Kurt Wagner or Kitty Pryde.
She threw another experimental punch and again felt nothing.
Okay. She knew she wasn't dreaming. So --
She felt a cold, metallic hand grab her neck from behind. "I don't know how you woke up," the woman whispered, "But you're making me work and I don't like that."
The woman shoved Daria forward and Daria hit the wall face-first. Ignoring the pain, Daria spun around only to find the woman once again reaching for her throat.
She suddenly stopped. Daria was confused until she saw the snake wrapping itself around the woman's leg. Of course, this only swapped out one confusion for another. Her attacker looked around and said, "Damn!" and then vanished again.
Daria should have been more surprised than she was when the snake suddenly became a young Asian woman maybe a couple of inches taller than Daria. She said, "You okay?"
"Yes -- who are you?"
"The person hired to save your life. And you're welc -- aaack!" The choking noise came when Daria's attacker abruptly reappeared and began choking her rescuer. Daria was about to move in to try to rescue the rescuer when the woman changed from human to leopard and, though still being held, lashed out with a paw, slashing at the attacker's face.
By now, some of the other prisoners were beginning to wake up. The two in the cell directly across from Daria got out of their beds, saw what was going on, yelled "What the fuck?" and immediately started shouting for the guards. (Daria would have bet anything it was the leopard that had clinched it.)
The leopard's slash had caught the attacker in the face. "God damn it!" she yelled, then dropped the leopard and immediately disappeared again.
By now other inmates had started screaming, including those who couldn't possibly have seen the bizarre battle taking place in Daria's cell.
"Thank you," Daria finally said.
The leopard became a woman and said, "Just doing what I was paid to do." Guards were now running down the corridor. "I have to --" her rescuer began.
Daria never heard the end of the woman's sentence. Her attacker reappeared running, grabbed Daria, and this time when she popped back out she took Daria with her.
It was a bizarre and utterly inexplicable experience, the next few seconds. Daria couldn't have described it if she'd tried, and she prided herself on her voluminous vocabulary.
The woman let Daria go, throwing her to the floor. As Daria looked around wildly she saw that they were somehow in the prison kitchen.
"Now then," her attacker said. "Where where we?"
X X X X X
Bonita Juarez looked at the clock when the phone rang. 11:51 PM. Her husband was lying asleep next to her and started to stir.
"Go back to sleep, Ray," she said, looking at the caller ID. "It's for me." She picked up the handset and said, "Hello?" Then, five seconds later, "What?"
"There's a major altercation in Lehane's cell ," the guard at the other end said.
"I heard you the first time," Bonita said, springing out of bed and reaching for her clothes. "It just surprised me. What the hell's going on?"
"About ten minutes ago some of the other prisoners started yelling for the guards, saying there was a leopard in Lehane's cell and how the leopard was attacking another woman, and the other woman was attacking Lehane. By the time they got there, Lehane wasn't in the cell anymore, but a Korean woman was. No signs of a leopard, either; hell, the woman wasn't even wearin' a leopard-skin outfit. And it ain't any of the inmates, either. The two across from Lehane's cell said how this other woman grabbed Lehane and just vanished."
"So she escaped."
"Nor from what we're hearing," the guard said as Bonita quickly put on a pair of jeans. "It ain't coherent, but the two women are sure that Lehane didn't want to go anywhere. We've got the Korean woman in custody, but she ain't saying anything, not even her name. We have no idea where Lehane and the other woman went."
"I assume you're scouring the prison."
"Top to bottom," the guard said. "We'll find them."
"You know the drill," she said. "Lock the place down. Flood the outside with light, and call the LAPD. And tell me: How the fuck do two people break into a jail?"
"Beats the hell out of me," the guard said.
"I want to know how. How the hell secure can we be if we let two people break in?"
"We caught one of them."
"She was in the cell when you got there. Gary Coleman could've caught her." Then something struck her. "A leopard was in the cell with her?"
"That's what they said. Beats the hell out of me why they thought that. Korean girl was wearing all black, not even a leopard-print suit."
"Okay. By the time I get there, I want Lehane back, the woman who attacked her caught, and the Korean woman's name. Do you understand me?" The guard said he did. "Good!" Bonita said, and slammed the phone down.
"What's wrong?" her husband said sleepily.
"Not sure. One of my prisoners is either trying to escape or being kidnapped."
"You need me to stay up?"
Bonita shook her head, "No. But I don't know how long this'll take. Just make sure the kids are all up and out tomorrow if I don't get back in time, okay?"
"Okay," he said, and fell back asleep. Bonita didn't worry. Ray was responsible; he'd do it.
So two prisoners said they saw a leopard -- and that another woman had taken Lehane and "just disappeared."
Likely her guards weren't being as diligent as they needed to with their contraband searches. Still, she'd like to know exactly what the hell was going on.
She grabbed a soda from the fridge, took her keys, and headed out to the car.
X X X X X
"Where we were," Daria said calmly, "Was my jail cell. But I suspect you already knew that."
"I don't need this," her attacker said.
"I, on the other hand, was of desperate need for someone to attempt to murder me in my sleep. I'd like to thank you for filling that hole for me." While Daria's mouth automatically came out with sarcastic comments, internally she was doing her best to channel Faith. This woman was here to kill her; she'd broken into a prison to do so. (And so had leopardwoman, but she was nowhere to be seen.)
The woman looked like nothing more than a suburban housewife gone commando; she even had a wedding ring on her hand. The hand that wasn't made out of metal, of course. Daria estimated her at about forty, and clearly the woman knew how to fight and could either teleport or walk through walls.
When the woman didn't move or say anything, Daria said, "Well? Are you going to try to kill me again, or did you bring me in here because you had a crème Brule recipe you wanted to try out?"
The woman didn't answer, instead popping back out. In the background, Daria could distantly hear the sound of people running through the prison hallways; but they were nowhere close by. She looked around for the doorway, at the same time keeping an eye out for her attacker. The one thing Daria'd figured out so far is that the woman preferred to strangle her opponents. She'd grabbed Daria by the neck once, her rescuer by the neck once, and had been reaching for Daria's neck when Buffy had woken her up. (And how had the echo known? A mystery. But one best left for when her life wasn't in imminent danger.)
She saw the door; it was clearly locked. Possibly, Daria could have kicked her way through it, but felt she probably wouldn't have the time. The woman was about Daria's own height. So. When she came in, it would likely be within about four feet or Daria, and either directly in front of her or directly behind -- wait, what was that --
And there she was, grabbing Daria from behind and once again shoving her forward towards an oven. Daria managed to catch herself before her face actually smashed into the metal. Letting Faith's instincts take over, she pushed herself back as hard as she could. This apparently caught her attacker by surprise, because Daria collided with the woman and they both fell to the kitchen floor.
When Daria scrambled to her feet again, the woman was gone. Daria thought about what she thought she'd heard just before the woman vanished -- a very slight sound.
If she concentrated, she could probably isolate it -- but she'd have to let the woman get off at least one more free shot. The guards in the background had come no nearer. Understandably, since the door appeared to be thoroughly secured, no one would have guessed that they would have ended up there. They were probably checking outside and obvious access paths thereto.
Daria walked forward and concentrated.
There the sound was again --
And the woman herself, a fifth of a second later. Daria had no idea what the sound represented, except the imminent return of her attacker.
Who, this time, had appeared right in front of her, but in a change of tactics, instead of trying to choke Daria, punched her in the stomach first, using her metallic hand. The woman didn't seem to be any stronger than an ordinary person, but the force of the blow doubled Daria over nonetheless.
The woman then pushed her backwards; the wind knocked out of her, Daria fell to the floor, landing on her back. Within a second the woman was on top of her, pinning both of Daria's hands beneath her body weight as she sat down.
"This is a lot more work than I normally have to put in," the woman said as she began to choke Daria. The metallic hand had a very strong grasp, and Daria wasn't able to take a breath, much less concentrate enough to let Faith's instincts take over.
Think, Morgendorffer! Dammit! Faith would have some move --
And so did Daria. She wasn't sure enough of herself to try to kick her attacker in the back of the head, or try to wrap her feet around the woman's neck and drag her backwards
But she knew how to roll.The woman looked stunned as Daria, flexing her entire body, turned over. The woman had to release her grip on Daria's throat or she would have been thrown into the wall. If Daria had had her normal human level of strength, that never would have worked.
"Jesus Christ," the woman said as they both scrambled to their feet. "The Council never said you had that kind of strength."
The Council? Where had Daria heard that name before?
Didn't matter. "I suggest you go take it up with them, then," Daria said.
"I will," she said. "After I've fulfilled my contract." And she popped out again.
Daria closed her eyes, tuned out the distant sounds of the guards, and listened.
There it was. Three feet to her right. Without thinking, Daria jabbed out with her right arm as hard as she could.
She could her attacker square in the face. The woman staggered backwards, crashed into the wall, and lay still.
Daria ran over to check on her -- still breathing. Just unconscious.
Then it hit her.
She'd beaten the woman. A super-powered assassin, and Daria had beaten her.
Daria had. Not Faith. Not Buffy. Not the guards. And not some shapechanging Korean woman.
As she took a couple of steps backward, the guards unlocked the kitchen door and came racing in. "Ah," she said to herself. "And right on cue . . ."
She held her hands up as they came over. One of the guards came over and put cuffs on her hands, but they seemed more interested in the other woman.
"Just to let you know," Daria said. "She attacked me."
"We know, Lehane," one of the guards said. "How the hell did you get in here?"
"I have no idea," Daria said truthfully. "But I assume we're headed off somewhere so someone can interrogate me."
"You got that right," the guard said. Out of the corner of her eye Daria noticed them putting handcuffs on the other woman even as she lay there unconscious. It would be interesting to see if, when she phased out, the cuffs went with her.
Daria kind of hoped they did.
"Tell me one thing," Daria said. "What time is it?"
The guard looked confused, but said, "11:58."
Daria smiled to herself as they led her out of the kitchen. She was sure the investigation would show that she'd done nothing wrong.
But that wasn't why she was smiling.
On April 10, 1997, Daria Morgendorffer had been killed.
On April 10, 2001 -- with two whole minutes to spare -- she was reborn.