In my longer fan fics, I sometimes go into weird, pseudo-scientific stuff.

Warning: Weird pseudo-scientific stuff ahead. This is a transitional chapter.

Chapter 4

Negotiations

"You want to do what?" Giles exclaimed.

"I want to take Dawn with me, maybe Willow too, if she's willing," Buffy said. "It's the best way to solve the Glory problem. She's too strong for me to fight, for anybody to fight, really. I don't want to spend the rest of our lives hiding from her, and knowing that if I fail to protect Dawn, I also fail to protect the world.

"Glory can't find Dawn and use her to open multiple hells on Earth if we're in space."

"And what about the predators?" Giles asked. "Buffy, you have seen for yourself. They are an extremely violent species, and they aren't trustworthy."

"That's where Willow comes in," Buffy says. "She helps balance things out some. And I have someone else in mind who could really help keep predators on the straight and narrow."

"I dunno, Buffy," Willow said. "Under most circumstances, sure, but with Tara..."

"I want to go with you," Tara interrupted, looking at Buffy. Then she turned to Dawn.

"I'll do everything in my power to make sure that nothing happens to you," Tara said to Dawn.

"OK, I'm in," said Willow. She turned to Tara and smiled. "Thanks for making things easy."

Tara tipped her head forward so that she and Willow were touching foreheads. The bump hurt a little, but Tara was glad to have her brain back in working order again. Even if she didn't remember much of anything other than these people and her life in Sunnydale. There was something about missing her mother, but not missing her father and brother, but things were blurry.

"I'll go too," Xander said.

"Wait a minute," Anya said. "I don't want to go into space with those things! I know beings like that...they want to take our heads and spines for trophies and suck out our brains! It's what they do."

"Anya, they aren't demons, they're aliens," Xander looked at her. "It's not like you've ever seen these things before."

Anya gave Xander a pitying look.

"Wait a minute, you have seen these guys before, haven't you?" Xander asked.

"As a matter of fact, Xander, I have, and believe me, they are as nasty as any demon you've ever met," Anya said. "One of them tried to take my head and spine, and nearly blew me up in France, or was it West Francia back then? Or maybe it was China."

"And you didn't think it was a good idea to...I don't know...say something?" Xander said. "You know, before Buffy decided to take one on, which turned into taking two on?"

Xander looked up and yelled at the predators.

"Cheaters!"

"Well, no," Anya said. "I'm not a vengeance demon anymore, Xander. What if they still want to take my head and spine?"

"Anya," Giles said. "The predator tried to take you because you were a vengeance demon. You were dangerous game. Now, as an unarmed human, you are not. I doubt you would be of any interest to them at all. Unlike Buffy."

"Oh," Anya said with a nod. "You are right, Giles. I am now helpless and very non-threatening."

She then smiled brightly as she looked at Xander.

"OK, then," she said. "I'll go too."

Tara looked at Giles. So did everyone else.

"Oh, very well," Giles said with a sigh. "I'll go. Someone has to keep you lot out of trouble."

At that moment, the group was joined. Tara was startled. She had a vague recollection that Spike had been with them, but she'd forgotten about him. And though there was still some light in the sky, and pink on the western horizon, the sun was now down.

"So, gang," the bleach blond vampire said as he clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "It's off to outer space for us, then, right?"

...

"It's not that simple," Zed said. "There are certain limits, both biological and political, to you going with Buffy to the predator's home world."

Giles felt his uneasiness increase. He did not like the idea of Buffy leaving to go to the predator's home world. However, he liked the idea of her going alone even less. She was too much of a tempting target for predators who wanted to test themselves with dangerous game.

"Let's start with the biological limits," Giles said.

"As I said to Buffy before, the predator home world is substantially larger than ours. The gravity is two and a half times greater than ours. By the way, most true planets with advanced biological life are larger than ours. The inhabited worlds that are closer to our size or smaller tend to be moons around gas giant stars. With the greater gravity comes much greater air pressure, much of it due not only to the air simply weighing more and being compressed in the higher gravity, but also to a greater concentration of oxygen."

"In other words, we would face the danger of hyperoxia," Giles said.

"Yes," Zed replied. "Look at the predators. You can see they are all carrying breathing apparatus and air tanks. They can breath our air, but our atmosphere is perilously thin to them, and without additional air they will eventually suffocate.

"And oxygen poisoning would only be the beginning. The very world, with its higher gravity and air pressure, would be oppressive. Noise would be very intense. With the possible exception of Miss Summers, you would all tire out very quickly."

"Do you have access to technology that could help us to survive on this world?"

Zed shook his head.

"I don't know," Zed said. "That's where the political barriers come in. The predators allow embassies, but not on their planet. No alien has been allowed on the preds' home world, except as game."

"Well, there's a vamp there now and she's having a grand old time," Buffy said. "And if they want me, they take my sister, and if they take my sister, they take my friends."

Buffy turned to Willow and Tara.

"What about magic?" Buffy said.

"Buffy," Tara said. "There's nothing...no history or spell book has anything, or references anything, about interplanetary travel and adaptation. It's...like...you know, an alien concept. It never came up."

"Wait," Willow said. "I may be able to do something, maybe with some help."

Willow turned to Zed.

"Where's Doc Leech?" she asked.

...

Buffy walked up to Riley.

"Thanks for your help," she said.

"Hey, don't mention it," Riley replied. He felt a little awkward, and found himself wondering how Sam was doing back at Fort Riley. "After all, I helped rescue you from some knights just to get you into a fight with giant alien hunters."

"Ooooh!" Buffy said brightly. "Alpha male guilt over putting me in the path of rampaging aliens! I can use that!"

Riley chuckled in spite of himself. He really liked that about Buffy, how she could turn from fierce warrior to cheery California girl, and back again.

"Use that how?" Riley asked.

"You have the working phone, since Willow's spell wore off on the payphone," Buffy said. "And we're still in the middle of nowhere where there doesn't seem to be any cell service. Could you call this number and hand the phone to me?"

Riley's good humor vanished as soon as he saw the business card. The card had the name "Angel Investigations" drawn next to an amateurish line drawing of what appeared to be a deformed butterfly.

Riley pulled out his satellite phone.

"Yeah, sure," he said. Riley did not succeed in keeping the bitterness from his voice.

...

"So, how did Riley respond to you asking him to call Angel?" Willow asked.

"A lot better than I thought he would," Buffy responded. She looked at Dawn.

"How're you holding up?" Buffy asked.

"Oh, do you care, now?" Dawn worked to put as much sarcasm as she could in her voice, even as she was privately thrilled that Buffy was finally paying her some attention.

"Nah," Buffy said. "But ever since she made me read the big sister's manual, Mom wanted me to ask you that question at least once a day."

"Well, you're about a year's worth of questions behind," Dawn said.

"So, how are you holding up?" Buffy asked.

"Hey!" Dawn yelled. "No cheap twosies!"

Buffy grinned. Dawn found herself smiling back.

Then, just as she always did, Buffy went right back to business.

"Angel wasn't home," Buffy said. "I left a message, but unless he calls in the next two hours or so, we're going to have to proceed without him."

"And if that happens, you still want Spike to go with us, even though...?" Willow let her voice trail off as she guiltily looked around.

"Even though what?" Dawn demanded.

Buffy shook her head as if Dawn's comment was like the buzzing of a fly next to her ear. Dawn hated it when Buffy did that.

"Yeah," Buffy said. "After talking with Giles and Zed, and especially after fighting those things, I'm convinced that we need leverage, and the best leverage we can hold over the predators' heads is our very own vampire."

...

The matriarch was stunned by the impracticality of the human female's demands.

"Another vampire, going with you?" she said. "That is an impossible concession. The one vampire that has made its way to our world is already causing enough damage!"

The male human who approximated their language spoke to the human female. The human female spoke back.

"She says she doesn't trust you," K said. "She wants her vampire to travel with you, to insure your good behavior."

"She doesn't think that she can insure my good behavior?" the predator asked. "She defeated two of my most accomplished spawn. What about the curiously shaped red human?"

"He is needed here," the human female replied through K. "Besides, him you could fight. You have no defense from a vampire."

"Which is why we don't want another one," the matriarch said. "Can you trust it not to go off on its own, and start to hunt my kin freely? My understanding is that most of these 'vampires' have no honor whatsoever."

The replay that came back through K was terse.

"We're working on it."

...

"Are you sure you're up to this?" Willow had asked. "I'd do it, but I need to help out with Doc Leech."

"I'm up to it," Tara had said.

Now, she was wishing she hadn't been so quick to volunteer to do the spell.

It was amazing how the BPD group was able to produce an Orb of Thessala so quickly. Apparently Trevor Bruttenholm found several of them at garage sales. Tara reviewed the spell, which Willow had written down on a couple of cards, trying to figure out where she'd gone wrong on her first attempt. Dawn was chanting the correct counter incantation while waving the candle, and so, interestingly, was Riley Finn. She didn't recall noticing it before, but there was a brightness in Riley's aura. Nothing close to Willow's, or even Dawn's, but Major Finn had the potential to be a fair spell caster himself.

Tara concentrated on trying to cast the primary spell again, but as she was starting to open her mouth, Spike chimed in.

"What the hell is the problem, blondie?" Spike grumbled. "Can't you hurry up and put my bloody soul back? When it's time to go, I want to be done with the brooding and recriminations over what a bad boy I've been."

Tara cast the spell again. Again, she felt something pass through her. Again, the Orb started to glow. She could see an aura inside of it. The aura of a man, a surprisingly gentle man. She looked at Spike, and his demonic aura was red, pulsing, and eager.

Tara read the old gypsy curse, but the Orb still did nothing but continue to glow. It didn't vanish, and the soul didn't enter Spike.

As the glow in the Orb died away, Tara felt faint. She doubted she had the strength to try again.

...

"That's myrrathian steak?" Willow asked dubiously. She was holding a test tub with a small amount of green sludge on the bottom. The sludge reminded Buffy of the sort of infected green mucous that decorated handkerchiefs during the tail end of a cold. "What's in it?"

"You really don't want to know," J replied.

"Is it poisonous to humans?" Willow asked.

"Not that I know of," J replied. "But I can't say for sure."

Willow shut her eyes. Then opened them up and looked at Doc Leech in its jar.

"It's not," Willow said authoritatively.

"How do you know?" Buffy asked. "Particularly since you didn't know a second ago."

"I asked the doc," Willow said, nodding at the leech like alien in the jar. "He and I have kinda of a...telepathic bond. We developed it while we worked on Tara together."

"Probably should have asked him first, then," Buffy said.

"Yeah, but...Doc Leech also told me what myrrathian steak is made out of. I was really hoping to not have to find that out."

"It looks like snot," Buffy said helpfully.

"I wish it was," Willow said. "I really wish it was."

Willow then took the stopper out of the test tube, and took a sip.

"Ewww!" said Buffy.

Willow made a face, then turned to Buffy and gave her a sickly smile.

"You think that was bad, wait just a second," Willow said.

Willow muttered some words, then gagged a couple of times. Then she took the still open test tube that was in her right hand, and spit myrrathian steak into it. Enough to fill the tube two thirds to the top. Willow then hastily put the stopper back onto the tube and ran out and around the corner.

Buffy heard the sounds of retching.

When Willow came back around the corner, her face was pale.

"Was that experience as bad as it looked?" Buffy asked.

"Let me put it this way," Willow said. "All in all, I would much rather fight a pissed off Goddess than do that again."

"That," J said. "May be the single grossest thing I have ever seen. And believe me, that is really saying something coming from me!"

Willow looked at the alien in the jar.

"I really hope you appreciated that!" she said.

...

"I'm sorry, Giles, but it's not working!" Tara said.

"Get Red to do it!" Spike said. "Blondie's head is obviously still scrambled."

"Actually, you need to shut up now," Riley said.

"Or what, Captain..."

"Major."

"...whatever, Cardboard. I'm the key guy here. Buffy said so!"

"Actually," Giles said. "We all need to shut up now. And I don't think Willow could have done any better, Tara. The problem isn't you, it's Spike."

"Oh, yeah, blame the vampire," Spike complained. "Real predictable for a watcher."

"Yes, well, as is so often the case, blaming the vampire is appropriate," Giles said. "However, I blame myself as well. I should have seen it."

"Seen what, sir?" Riley asked.

"So we're back to 'sir', now, Riley?" Giles said. "Never mind. The curse on Angel is actually a curse on Angelus. A curse that put his body and his strength under the control of the resurrected soul of Liam, the man Angel was. Angelus is more or less along for the ride, helplessly watching Angel squander opportunities for abject cruelty and mayhem. Thus, Angelus' most fond hope is for Angel's soul to be ejected again, so that he is free to engage in his most wanton desires."

"So?" Spike said. "That's what I'll be doing to myself...wait a minute. Oh, bollocks! That won't work!"

"That's right," Giles said. "It won't work. The Romany curse is not a curse if the target wants it to happen. In Spike's case, he agreed to having this curse put on him. For whatever personal demented reason he has..."

"Hey!" shouted Spike.

"...ahem! For whatever reason, the vampire wants the soul. That makes the curse not a curse, and a curse that is not a curse can not be cast.

"We'll have to find some other way to control Spike."

"Hey!" Spike shouted again.

"I agree," Buffy said as she walked out of the abandoned gas station. "How about we go with the truth?"

"Buffy, have you lost your...Good Lord!" Giles exclaimed.

"The truth about what? Bloody Hell!"

Riley stared at Buffy, wordless.

"Buffy, is that really you?" Dawn asked.

Spike, forgetting momentarily that there was a "truth" to tell him, spoke with characteristic lack of tact.

"You look like a muscular cabbage patch doll, Slayer!"

...

Buffy insisted on going first. She gave Xander a threatening look when he argued that he should go first.

"Willow says that this is going to be a drastic union of magick and alien medicine, Xander," Buffy said. "I'm the one who has the best chance of withstanding this if something goes wrong. I'm the best guinea pig."

Xander opened his mouth to resume his argument about being the most expendable.

"End of story, Xan," Buffy said. Xander shook his head, and Buffy smiled. "But thanks for trying."

Buffy went back into the abandoned gas station, took off all of her clothes, and laid down on the table where Giles had been when he was still wounded. She hardly felt it when "Doc Leech" was laid on her face (right over her lips!) and crawled into her nostril. Just a momentary obstruction in her nostril, which made her want to blow her nose, then she didn't feel the alien inside her at all.

Then, Willow started an incantation, and Buffy suddenly felt intense pain, almost as if she was being compressed in a vice. She tried to take in a breathe, but there didn't seem to be enough air.

The pain ended as quickly as it began, but the feeling of suffocation stayed.

Then she felt an obstruction in her nose. Instinctively, she reached up to pull it out.

"Wait, Buffy, don't crush the doctor," Willow said. "We've got 6 more people to do."

Buffy, through an effort of sheer will, stopped her hand from reaching her nose. Then, the obstruction was gone, and she felt Willow put the jar on her face to scoop up the alien doctor. Buffy then put all of her mental effort to stop herself from panicking about suffocating. Suddenly, Buffy felt something put over her face. She opened her eyes to see J holding a mask over her face. There was a predator air tank connected to the hose.

"I don't believe it," J said. "You did it! You changed her into a...something."

Buffy reached up for the air hose, but stopped when she saw her stubby little fingers.

...

"Drusilla?" Spike exclaimed. "The alien monsters are being hunted by Drusilla?"

Part of Spike immediately understood why the Slayer and her friends had not told him that the predator hunting vampire was Drusilla. The rest of him, however, simply felt betrayed and frustrated. They never would trust him. Not that he cared. Well, except for the Slayer, and curiously enough, her little sister. He desperately wanted them to trust him.

But they wouldn't, no one would. Not while they couldn't put his soul back (not that having a bloody soul made anyone perfectly trustworthy, anyway).

And the predators certainly wouldn't trust him. Not that they should. The aliens were going to betray the Slayer if they could, once she did their dirty work. Besides, they smelled delicious.

And what about Drusilla? His first true love. His sire. Could he really resist the opportunity to hunt aliens at her side on an alien world?

He had to admit he really didn't know. And if he didn't know what he would do, how could anyone else? How could the Slayer?

But for whatever reason, he still wanted to help the Slayer and her sister. If there were only some other way to ensure his good behavior...

"Wait a minute," Spike said. "I actually have an idea. And I hate it, so I know you all will think it's a good one."

Buffy's head, mounted on impossibly broad shoulders stuck on top of a squat little 3 foot body, turned to look at him. Buffy was wrapped in her shirt, and looked just plain...wrong.

"What about Major Cardboard over there?" Spike asked. "He could keep an eye on me. Maybe the Initiative could make him a remote control to activate my damn chip if I start to act up, even if I'm not attacking humans.

"And he bleeding hates me, so he won't hesitate to use it."

"Neither would I," squeeked a squat little Xander with disproportionately broad shoulders. The boy also had an oxygen mask over his little squashed up face. "It's your turn, Giles."

Giles looked at Xander with a grimace.

"It doesn't hurt," Xander said. "Much."

...

"Are you serious?" Riley exclaimed. "You want me to go with them?"

"The vampire suggested it, and the matriarch accepted the proposal," Bruttenholm said.

"Why would she accept Spike's proposal?" Riley asked.

"Evidently, she accepted it because it included you, and she trusts you," Bruttenholm said. "She knows that you are a man of your word. Even when you are lying for clandestine purposes, you do so to honor prior promises you made to our government."

"And how would a predator matriarch know how trustworthy I am?" Riley asked.

"Apparently," K said. "The preds have been following your career for awhile."

"Why would they...?" Riley suddenly felt very, very sick. "They were scouting me, weren't they? They were going to hunt me."

"In their own way, the preds have just paid you an enormous compliment, Major Finn," Zed said.

...

The matriarch was fascinated. She knew that there was something on Earth, an entropy reversing process called "magick" that arose from the unique dimensional instability around Earth. The dimensional instability essentially made the space in and around Earth an open system. There were humans and other creatures here who could manipulate the entropy reversal process, and apparently the red headed human was quite exceptional at it. And in conjunction with the medical symbiot, this "Willow" had done the incredible. She had shaped the human organism to live and thrive on the predator's home world!

Next

Chapter 5

Departure