Part 7,

Note: There is going to be some sex talk in this chapter pertaining to some of the characters, so pardon some of the imagery.

Foxtrot Zulu niner, we have an incoming stuffed piggy coming our way. I am Taking evasive measures at this time. Out.

You will know what this means later on.


"Standard Slayer training one oh-one, Illyria." Chloe said as Illyria followed behind her in civilian clothing. Between the blue-green cargo pants, the near-skin tight red and blue Nike rash guard and the blue hooded zip up sweatshirt had made Illyria look somewhat normal, well "Smurfette" normal. "Illyria, could you do something for me and lose the blue stripes." Chloe said as Illyria moved over to study the name of a nearby grave.

"Sonny Leland, Beloved Daughter, and child. May you rest with the Angels in Heaven. 1982 - 1999" Illyria said as she touched the surface of the grave with her hand. "Humans and demons are such strange creatures with their need to put monuments to their dead. They seem to desire to make a statement that I was here." Illyria said as she looked at the rest of the stone markers around her.

"Illyria, what is it, you know her?" Chloe said as she pulled back a lock of her dark hair.

"No... It is just... In a few days I will be standing in a place like this and bidding Wesley good bye." Illyria said as she started to sense her own mortality.

"Blue... It's going to be okay... you have been through a lot." Chloe said as she knelt down by Illyria pulling a lock of hair from Illyria's face.

"Chloe... you said that you have battled many times." Illyria said as she reached over to touch the black denim jacket Chloe was wearing. "Yet during the battle we were in was large yet you fought like you have been through something like it before." Illyria said as she studied the wooden stake in her hand.

"Yes, the S-Day invasion of the Hellmouth and the battle against the forces of the First. Heck a few thousand Turok Han coming after you makes all other baddies in bulk look tame." Chloe said as she tapped Illyria on the arm, the she turned her head to start to sense out the sounds around her. Then she heard a sound of a branch breaking.

"Illyria you ready?" Chloe said as she moved with Illyria around the graves of where the sound was heard. Standing behind a tombstone they watch as a couple of demon kids were playing around.

"Come on Dara... Slayers are just a myth." One of the young demons said as she pulled a lock of red hair behind her orange horns of her pink skin. Between the human-esq. Garb she looked she was in the Tween years with the faded jeans and green "girl power" t-shirt.

"Yeah... Well your uncle said that he ran into one in a graveyard... Well I'm going to find one and take a picture of it." Dara said as she marched through the grave as her brown skirt, hiking boots and silver short cut blue shirt exposed a good chunk of her greenish skin with the white tendrils from her blond hair dancing down her back.

"Yeah and he spent most of his life living on the Hellmouth." The young demon said to her friend.

"Well Tash... All we have to do is find a recently buried grave and hope that there is a vampire inside." Dara said as both Illyria and Chloe watched.

"Chloe, those two demons are looking for one of your kind." Illyria said watching the two young demons waltz through the graveyard.

"Well, Lets see if we can steer them to one." Chloe said as Illyria tilted her head in curiosity.

"You wish to use them as bait?" Illyria said as she looked at Chloe.

"No... Not exactly... but... they want to see a Slayer... Let's give them a show." Chloe said as Illyria studied her intensely.

"Why?" Illyria said looking as the two demon girls moved off in the distance.

"Well among some demons, Slayers are like an urban myth. Something they tell their larva to clean their slime pits, eat all of their veggies, and be good." Chloe said as Illyria looked as she moved with Chloe through the shadows keeping the two girls in sight.

"So being a Slayer is about stealth, power and letting your presence be known only in battle." Illyria said as she started to smell the ground and the air. Illyria scents were overloaded by her demon senses but Fred stepped in and tamed Illyria's sense of smell and allowed her to search for specific beings. Illyria started to realize that she liked this stated then the adrenaline hit her system and the rush was on.

"Illyria what is it?" Chloe said as they faded into in the darkness as they slowly started tapping the graves with their stakes.

"I think they are going to find a new born Half-breed in the direction they are going." Illyria said, as she looked at Chloe's black leather jacket blend her into the shadows.


"What is that Tash?" Dara said as she thought she had heard a tap of something wood against stone.

"Nothing Dara I thought I heard something." Tash said as she shifted her red hands in front of her. The Exo-skeletal armor on her fingers shifted against her soft belly as she started to get scared. Boy did she wish her claws were more developed and her chest Exo was a bit harder, she didn't want to die.

"Tash... for a Ano-movic demon you are sure fidgety." Dara said as she looked around. I mean it ain't like the Slayer is stalking us." Dara said as she walked over a fresh grave.

"Dara... Fresh Grave..." Tash said as she stopped by the grave and gave it a sniff.

"Good now all we have to do is wait for the Slayer to show." Dara said as she leaned on the gravestone.

"Tash I hope that you have your camera handy." Dara said as she brushed away some of the dirt and started to feel the ground for movement.

"Yes it is ready, it's a digital camera." Tash said, as there was a click sound as a photo was taken of her Ano-movic demon friend.

"Well don't use up all of the memory in Card." Dara said as she sat down. By her friend.

"Will do..." With that Tash deleted the photo from the cameras memory.

"Dara, I know that I'm a Geiger demon and our mating is well is considered by some to be strange. But what is like for you guys?" Tash said as she sat on the grave with her friend attempting to sort out her first talk about mating given that she was hitting that age where boys and males were starting to look very appealing to her. "Well you know, the pluming is the same, just that well we just don't have twelve plug slots, we only have the one." Dara said attempting to avoid the graphic nature of the question.

"Hey these tendrils I have in my hair goes into the male. While his... You know.... goes into my... " Dara attempted not to say the word for the male reproductive organ and the female one in the same sentence.

"Wait those go into the male..." Tash said looking at the tendrils that were looped over Dara's shoulder with her hair.

"Well yeah... I mean we can mate with a human, but we have to do it in our human form, that and we have spikes coming out of our back.... Hey I caught my sister doing it with her boyfriend in her room." Dara said as the interspecies girl talk went on.

"Well talk about being on top when you do it." Tash said as she looked at her friend's back.

"Yeah... listen what is it like for your kind... I mean... has your mom given you the talk yet." Dara said looking at her orange skinned horned friend given that the most they knew was from the movies and TV.

"Well, I did learn that the pluming is the same as a human, just the rituals that lead up to it are just weird... I mean if you marry a divorcee, you have to eat the ex's brains... or a can of Spam on the ex's head. Depends on the tribe you are marring into." Tash said as Dara looked at her.

"Wow, so I wonder what Slayer mating patterns are like?" Dara said as she started to sense that the ground of another nearby grave started to shift then descend down.

"Did you hear that?" Tash said as another shift in the ground occurred.

"Yeah I heard that too Tash." The orange skinned demon said as she listen again, this time she put her head on grave stone to hear what was happening underground.

"Dara..." Tash said as she pulled her ear away from the gravestone, "I think that we are in trouble here." The young Ano-movic demon said as she looked around at the other graves. They all had places of where the soil had dented in from more than the usual setting of the ground. That was when the ground shifted from underneath them and they started to sink into the soil.

"What the..." Was all Dara could say as with the combined body weight of herself and Tash started to pull them down as the coffin in the earth six feet below them was pulled out from underneath of them and the ground started to swallow them up legs first. Suddenly with they're lives flashing before them two sets of arms grabbed them and pulled them up.

"Uh... Dara." Tash said looking at her feet.

"Yeah..." Dara said with almost a squeak.

"Are you holding me or is it someone else?" Tash said looking down at the hole she was being held over.

"If it isn't You that is holding me? Then who is?" Dara said as she looked up to see that her friend was being held over the same hole as she was.

"Um, then whomever has us, is either a demon or a...." Tash said as the realization hit her....

"Slayer...you will die for intruding on our sacred grounds." Said the voice of a vampire wearing a very gaudy orange robe.

"Um, or it could be the fact that we are about to die..." Dara said as a trail of blue urine ran down her greenish armored leg.

"Blue, do you want the honors or should I?" A voice said from behind them.

"Wait, wait... We didn't do anything to you..." Tash said as she started to plead for her life.

"We were not talking to you two." Another voice said from behind them. There was a definite sound of a Texas twang to it, but the coldness of it scared them more.

"Your not... then you are..." the realization hit Dara as she looked at the Vamp in front of her was more of his friends were gathering around them.

"Well Blue... It looks like we are going to get a workout." The voice said behind of Dara.

"Yes, I have been looking forward to battling a vampire. Shall we battle?" The Texas twangy voice said behind of Tash.

"You know that we have to protect these two." The voice said behind the two demon girls.

"Yes, and the challenge will prove to be interesting." The Texan continued.

"Um, there are about thirty Vamps." Dara said as suddenly the arm grabbed her and a flat out run was in progress. The only thing that Dara would see for the next minute plus would be a wave of dust and a head of blue hair.


Chloe moved with her stakes through the Vampires before them. Boy were Vamps getting cheesy or what. Rainbow colored robs with a triangle with a two inside of it. Talk about lacking any fashion sense. One of the Demon girls she and Illyria had saved from falling into that cavernous hole told her that the vamps had started to go discrete in getting their newly sired brethren out of the graved. They had tunneled under the graveyard and were pulling their brethren out. It was almost like they had barrowed the idea from an old Episode of "Tales from the Crypt."

The young demon girl Chloe had a hold of as she dusted two Vampires at a time was definitely wetting her paints.

"Hey Red... do you have a name?" She yelled out to the young demon girl who she was dragging behind her between the dusting of the various vampires around her.

"Tash..."

"Tash stay close to me." Chloe said as she stabbed two vamps at once with a stake in each hand as she drop kicked another with the heel of her shoe.

"So... tell me what were you two thinking when you decided to come into a grave yard?" Chloe said as she grabbed a vamp by the neck and spun his head around so fast the head severed and the dusted pile of what used to be the vampire fell to the ground.

"Um, to get a photo of a Slayer..." the demon girl said as she looked at the vampires of various sizes fall around the Slayer leaving a large and ever growing pile of dust.

"Yeah.... Well have you taken it yet?" Chloe said as she proceeded to use the still dusting arm of a vamp she had taken out and shoved his sliced off arm into the eye of another vampire before stabbing the same vamp in the back with a stake as a flash from Tash's digital camera went off.


Dara was scared... she had heard tales about the Slayer but nothing like this... Probably because those who had seen this were probably dead as she hid behind a gravestone.

"You are filth that defiles a place of rest." The blue haired Slayer said as she wielded a curved axe blade made of wood. The number of vamps she killed was something she had only seen in the movies. Heck Wesley Snipes in the 'Blade' movies wasn't hacking as fast as this Slayer was. It was scary as hell, that and the Slayer's one liners were very disturbing, she was speaking like a female Agent Smith from the 'Matrix.'

"Is this all the skill you half-breeds possess? I have killed creatures that made this world shudder in fear. I am one of those creatures." The Slayer said as she grabbed some overly sized Vampire that could have doubled for a linebacker for the Entire NFL and proceeded to rip his head off with her bare hands.

Then almost on cue from a John Woo flick, a legion of Bats erupted from the underground cavern and the Slayer was gone. Dara looked around waiting for more Vampires to show up as she cringed in fear behind the grave she was hiding by. She was hearing her own heart beat going, thaunk, thaunk, thaunk, thaunk, thaunk... in her ears. Then as the tendrils in her hair wove closer to prevent from moving, she sensed a presence behind of her.

"Young one... do you wish death?" The cold feminine Agent Smith Texas voice said right beside of her. All Dash could do was slowly turn her head to view the Blue haired Slayer crouched right next to her looking off into the distance over the battle field she had recently been in.

Dara couldn't move she was too scared; she just looked at the Slayer as the Slayer turned its head to look right at her. What scared her the most was, not the face.... It was the Eyes...

"Young one... you tempt death by coming to this place." The Slayer said as she reached out an arm and touched her face running a finger slowly down by her ear.

"You.... Sl... Sla..... Slayer???" Dara said as a small trail of urine started to run down her leg.

"I do not know." The Slayer said with a sense of defeat coming over her.

"Not know... " Dara said as she looked at the Slayer who looked like she had become lost in her own thoughts.

"I do not know, what I am... I am not Demon... Not human, yet I have magic in my blood and I am to Sorcerer... My mind is jumbled by emotions and memories of eight lives." The Slayer said as she started to break down. "I ... Violence... WESLEY...." With that the Slayer started to pound at the ground with her fists. Huge chunks of dirt and sod started to be dislodged with each blow. All Dara could do was watch as this scary unstoppable killing machine of a creature started to become an emotional mess.

"Your right your friend Illyria has issues." Tash said as she came up by Dara.

"Yeah she does... trust me... don't say the "W" word. The therapy bills are big enough already."

"What Wesley..." Dara said as the Blue Slayer howled in pain again and had more of a break down. All Dara could do was move slowly away from the Slayer as she cringed with her knees up into her chest. "Okay, I get the point... sheesh... So what happened to this... you know?"

"W... well she was in love with him. When she failed to get to him during some big battle... he was killed. She took out her anger on an army of demons and nearly lost another friend that night... She is still a little raw." A human with dark hair and wearing a black leather jacket and back paints said as she came up and knet down by the blue haired Slayer. "Illyria... batting and beating the crap out of everything will not bring Wesley back. He wanted you to live. He was a Watcher... The trainer of Slayers... You loved him... Now honor him by living, he would have wanted that." The Dark haired woman said as she moved to hold the Blue haired Slayer in her arms.

"Chloe, of the Slayers... I fear that I am alone..." Illyria said as Chloe just held her.

"You're not... okay Blue... your not... Your not the only one that lost friends and family... the Harbingers slaughtered my entire family, now I have brothers and sisters I never knew I had." Chloe said as she hugged Illyria tight. "You have family."

"You are going to be my Ka'rom 'shock?" Illyria said as she just held on.

"Well, how about family." Chloe said as she moved back to wipe so of the tears from Illyria's face.

"Um, Illyria the Slayer..." Tash said fearing that the blue haired Slayer would impale her.

"Slayer... you called me a Slayer???" Illyria said and the look on the Blue Slayer's face was of realization as she moved and got up and looked into the night sky.

"Um. Listen Slayer... I'm sorry. I won't tell anyone that I saw you have your little break down... Heck I don't even remember it..." Dara said as she started to scoot away.

"Young one stay..." Illyria said as Dara stopped cold in her tracks...

"Okay..." Dara said in almost a squeak.

"A Slayer... Wesley was the trainer of Slayers... I was called a Slayer... I am with Slayers... Thus does that mean I am a Slayer? Or is a title, a term of honor?" Illyria said looking at her hands... "Did the Powers choose this for me? Or was my existence to be honored in a different way???... Then... if the Powers..." Illyria looked up into space as if the heavens would hold some answer for her. "You could have at least given me an instruction manual to how to function in this accursed world." Illyria said as she fell on her knees, as she still looked into the heavens waiting form some sort of answer to be given to her by some divine being or by Wesley's spirit.


Tacos: a strange food to be considered in its simple wrapping of baked mashed floral paste, the cooked flesh of some beast from either the land, air or sea and the shredded green leaves of another plant mixed with the sliced red fruit of another plant sat before Illyria. Between her stomach groveling like a savage animal in the interspecies restaurant they were in. The desire to eat felt as if it would bring comfort to her. Between Reading and studying this world, food brought about some of the most interesting and near calming sensations she had. The bottle of Jones Cola, the tatter tots and the vegetable paste that mirrored animal blood that sat on the small cup before her made her think of what had transpired after the battle.

The Term of Old One meant nothing in this world... But the term Slayer meant something of power, strength, and identity.

"Illyria your taco is getting gold." Chloe said as the two demon girls looked at Illyria with wonder.

"Sorry, just deep in thought." Illyria said as a full Texas drawl came out.

"Well considering that the meltdown you had, tells me that we should have did a patrol on the college campus instead of the graveyard." Chloe said as she put her hand on Illyria's shoulder.

"It wouldn't have mattered... I know why you wanted me to go on patrol with you... It's about Dana." Illyria said as both Dara and Tash looked at her.

"Who's Dana?" Tash said as she ran her fingers through her hair.

"She is a Slayer, a pretty screwed up one..." Chloe said as Illyria looked at her with sadness in her eyes.

"More screwed up than Illyria here... That is a stretch." Dara said as she looked at Illyria some more.

"Chloe, you and I know that Dana has spent most of her life in a mental institution. That and combined with the collective trauma of what "Whistling man" Kendall did to her and her Slayer powers kicking in. She has lost any chance of being normal." Illyria said as she reached out and pulled a napkin out and took a small pocket pen out of her pants pocket and started to scribble in a strange language her people used for their magics. "I know what it is like to be alone... but missing to on so many of your societies rituals... most of which deal with you becoming an adult." Illyria stopped as she looked at Chloe. "I want to give her a chance to control the voices that she has in her head from all of the previous Slayers that have all lived and died over the existence of the Slayer line. If she can get a single voice of herself then, along with the age reversal spell she might have a chance to be normal. I have heard that there was another Slayer that has made her, her apprentice."

"Yeah, Faith..." Chloe said butting in but she let Illyria continue.

"Yes, Faith the Dark Slayer... If I can give Dana a sense of having a life back, of being part of the world, she will have a fighting chance." Illyria said as Chloe, Dara, and Tash looked at her.

"You want to give Dana the chance you weren't." Chloe said, as she understood Illyria's motivations now.

"Yes..." Illyria said as slowly started to move her hand over to one of the tatter tots on her tray.

"Well, I think Wesley would have been proud of what you are doing." Chloe said as she patted Illyria's hand.

"You think..." Illyria said with hope in her eyes.

"Yeah, I think you are going to make it... Just don't be afraid to say you need help. We all fall down on our faces from time to time. It is the willingness to say that "I need help getting up" that shows your real character in the face of adversity." Chloe said as Spike came on by holding his glass of otter blood, tea and tapioca.

"Well there Little Shiva. I see that you are bonding with some of the we Women." Spike said as Illyria looked up at him.

"Spike, I may have super strength and have pummeled you into the ground many times. You and Angel are counter dictions of your species. Yet I understand why you made those counter dictions." Illyria said as she moved to take a bite out of her taco.

"You're eating." Spike said looking at the taco being eaten.

"Yes... this form needs nutrients... Even with the transformations I have made to it, the sudden need for food has offered something of a feeling of connection to this world. Though the flesh in this vegetable matter does somewhat taste like Fer'al meat and Shrimp." Illyria said as she looked at the contents of the bite she had taken. "I distaste of Shrimp, but the sensation of familiarity is what I need to hold on to, even if it is a bad one." Illyria said as she started to toss more tater tots into the taco and poured the feau blood into it before taking another bite of the taco.

"So what have you been talking about?" Spike said as he took a slug of his oriental blood tea.

"We have been talking about some Slayer named Dana and Blue here wanting to make her, her apprentice." Dara said as Spike when he heard that spat out the mouthful of blood tea he had in his mouth.


TBC

Next: Funerals, Slayers and Full moons.

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