Passion
Oz settled in the armchair with his elbows on his knees. Giles and Cordelia sat on opposite ends of the sofa, while Kendra paced. Joyce came in from the kitchen with a cup of tea for Giles and sat down between him and Cordelia.
"Thank you very much, Joyce," Giles said politely.
Cordelia shook her head. "Well, that worked about as well as bowling shoes at the prom."
"Yes, um, do you know what went wrong?" Joyce asked.
"It felt wrong," Oz spoke up. "When I soothed 'em. It was supposed to calm them down, make them more willing to move on..."
"Yes?" Giles prompted.
"It wasn't like that," Oz said. "It was like I was killin' them."
"Killing them?" Cordelia repeated. "But they're already dead!"
Oz shrugged. "They fought back, overpowered me. Even duraluminum only slowed them down. They fought like you'd fight for your life."
Giles set down his tea and looked thoughtful.
"So we need a new plan?" Joyce asked.
"Hm, perhaps not," Giles said. "Perhaps what we need is an old plan."
"You mean to resolve de spirits' issue," Kendra said.
"How?" Joyce asked.
Cordelia suddenly sat up. "Hey. The ghosts are possessing people and acting out the same fight over and over, and it keeps ending the same way, because hello shot in the chest, but what if the people they possess don't die when they get shot? What would happen then?"
Giles blinked. "I'm, I'm not sure. I imagine it would likely alter how the scene plays out."
"So like, let them possess someone who's had the upgrade, on purpose," Oz said.
"I don't like the idea of doing that to someone," Joyce opined.
"Yes, you're right of course," Giles agreed. "We need volunteers."
"I will do eet," Kendra said immediately.
"Um," Joyce said uncertainly. "Maybe it should be me, instead? In case something goes wrong and you need to do... something?"
Kendra hesitated.
"There's a problem," Oz pointed out. "None of our guys are Fae'd."
There was an awkward silence.
Giles polished his glasses. "Ah, in that case, I feel it is my responsibility to volunteer."
"Are you crazy?" Cordelia blurted. "You could get your brains blown out!"
"No," Oz spoke up. "I'll follow under a coppercloud. Make sure he doesn't."
"Yes, I appreciate that," Giles said, glancing awkwardly at Joyce.
Joyce put on an air of cheer. "So! We have a plan, then."
"I don't see why we can't call up Xander and have him beam his butt down here to help out," Cordelia said.
Joyce sighed. "Buffy explained - "
Just then, the doorbell rang, and Joyce fell silent as everyone glanced towards the door. Oz raised an eyebrow. Everyone was already here, and it was kind of late for anyone else to be dropping by. The bell rang again, and Joyce got up to answer it.
"Hello," Joyce greeted. "Can I help you?"
The girl on the doorstep instantly made Oz suspicious. She put the eerie in eerie pale-skinned brunette, and her clothes were odd in a way that wasn't immediately obvious. It fit together, and fit her, too well.
"My name is Homura Akemi," the girl said. "I apologize for coming unannounced, Mrs. Summers. If it isn't too much trouble, I would like to speak with you about your daughter."
"Oh, um, you know Buffy?" Joyce asked.
"In a manner of speaking," Homura replied with a little quirk of her lips. "Is now a good time?"
"Um, I'm afraid not," Joyce said apologetically, glancing back into the house at Oz and the others. "We have a somewhat pressing matter to attend to tonight."
Homura took a step to the right and peered into the house passed Joyce. Her gaze locked with Oz, and he noted that her eyes were actually violet, not black. Yeah, there was no way this girl was normal. Then she looked passed him to the rest of the group that had gathered in the foyer, pausing on Giles and Kendra.
"I see," Homura said softly. "If there is an urgent need for a slayer and her allies, please accept my assistance."
"Hey!" Cordelia cut in. "How do you know about Kendra? Giles, do you know her?"
"No," Homura answered before Giles could. "I'm not affiliated with any of the factions you know of. However, it is in my interests to establish goodwill."
Well that wasn't ominous at all. Also, totally called it. Oz glanced back. Cordelia looked confused, while Kendra was frowning and Giles was glaring suspiciously.
"What is that?" Cordelia suddenly blurted. "That fabric? You have to tell me where you got that outfit!"
Giles rubbed his forehead. "Cordelia."
"What?"
"Really not the time for fashion, Cordy," Oz put in.
"Oh, well, I vote she comes with us," Cordelia declared.
Joyce looked back at them. "If she wants to help..."
"Wat if she only gets in de way?" Kendra asked flatly.
Homura responded by raising her left hand. Joyce took a step back as Homura's glove suddenly glowed like a blacklight and seemed to explode, leaving behind a bronze buckler strapped to her arm. Homura slashed her arm down, leaving a trail of blacklight through the air.
"That will not be a concern," Homura stated firmly. She turned, her long raven-black hair flowing in her wake as she stepped down off the porch. "Shall we go?"
Cordelia chased her out of the house. "Hey! You're a witch?"
"It would be more accurate to say I am a mage," Homura corrected.
"What's the difference?" Cordelia wondered.
The remaining four exchanged a look. Oz shrugged. Joyce grabbed her car keys and out they went.
In her officer suite aboard the Arthra, Hayate sat in front of a wall of screens, trawling - and occasionally trollin' - through the terrestrial internet for clues. Rein-chan's holographic avatar sat crosslegged on top of her head as she set to tracing the IP address whenever Hayate found something promising. Vita was asleep on her lap, and Hayate cuddled her favorite loli-GAR while she controlled the screens with her mind.
A street map and a driver's license photo popped up on a new screen. Rein-chan had completed her latest trace. Hayate forwarded it to Galvan Soul for Madoka. Hayate opened a com window, but instead of accepting the call, Hayate felt Madoka establish a telepathic link.
Hayate shook her head in amusement. You do realize you just did something impossible again, right?
Huh? Madoka sent back. Oh, you mean the distance. Well, the link I'm using now is a little different than the standard one...
That's right, I remember you saying something about that, Hayate replied. It was something like the difference between a flashlight and a laser?
That's... really not a very good analogy, Madoka sent. Um, anyway, do you think this lead's good? The last woman never had any magical ability at all, I'm pretty sure.
I know, Hayate groaned. Between the dozen or so groups all calling themselves Wiccans, the this-pagans, the that-pagans, the this-and-that-pagans, the pagan-wiccans, all the various priests and priestesses of whoever, and the otherkin, I'm guessing wildly about who's a genuine hedge witch, who's delusional, and who's just wearing the trappings to make themselves mysterious.
Vita squirmed a bit in her sleep and buried her face in Hayate's cotton-clad breasts. Hayate sighed and smiled lovingly, petting Vita's hair.
I'm teleporting to the new coordinates now, Madoka sent, and closed the link.
"I was looking for a slayer," Fate admitted during a lull in the singing.
Faith kicked back in her armchair. She made it look casual, even if her senses were trained on the odd blonde sitting across from her. Fate's weird red eyes flicked down to Faith's boot and narrowed slightly. Damn, blondie didn't miss much, did she.
"Well it looks like you found her, blondie," Faith said carelessly. "What'd ya want with me?"
Fate shook her head. "Not you. Another slayer called Kendra Young. I was told she is stationed on the hellmouth here."
Trying not to show her sudden interest, Faith popped one elbow out onto the armrest of her chair and leaned forward a little. "Well shit, that's already more than I know. What'd you want with her?"
"She and her team knew people my friends are interested in learning about," Fate explained. "We want her opinion. Her impressions."
"So you're here lookin' for her," Faith said, nodding. "Makes sense."
"I was," Fate corrected. "My understudy has already found her."
"Wait, what?" Faith blurted. "How'd you know that? I didn't see you get a call or nothing."
"We have telepathy spells," Fate said, standing. "They're at the high school, dealing with a threat. I should join them."
Now that was almost perfect. Faith could jump in and be the big damn hero, and the other slayer would owe her. No way she wasn't getting in on that.
Faith swung her feet down and hopped up herself. "Hey, sounds like fun. I'm in."
Fate paused for a moment and Faith just smirked at her, daring the other girl to tell her she couldn't come along. Fate just nodded in acceptance, and Faith followed her out of the Bronze and around into the alley where no one could see them.
Faith sensed something. There, in the shadows some vampire chick was feeding on a dweeb. Faith grinned in anticipation and reached for her stake as she started to step around Fate.
Before Faith could do anything, Fate raised her arm and pointed at the vampire. A tiny ball of lightning crackled into being at the end of her finger. It became a streak of yellow light in an instant, slicing through the vampire's neck... which exploded like a cat in a microwave.
Faith stumbled in surprise as the vampire's remains went to dust. "Shit! What was that?"
Instead of answering, Fate checked on the victim. He'd fallen to the ground and wasn't moving. Fate shook her head and did something Faith couldn't see, but when she stood up there was a little shard of yellow light clinging to his hair.
"He's beyond our help," Fate told Faith.
Faith shrugged. "Meh. The aliens will take care of him."
"...yes," Fate agreed. She turned away from the dead dude and touched her weird necklace. "Bardiche."
And the weird necklace answered her, in a deep monotone computer voice. YES, SIR. LIGHTNING FORM.
Thick arcs of electricity suddenly covered the other girl from head to toe. It was over in barely a second. The lightning scattered off of Fate in a shower of sparks, and Faith recovered just in time to feel her jaw drop.
"No fuckin' way," Faith blurted.
Fate's clothes had been replaced with something completely different, and she was holding this big axe-headed polearm. About the only thing it had in common with her previous outfit was the color scheme. It looked like a form-fitting armored black one-piece swimsuit, with thick leather belts holding up a tiny pink skirt slit up the front and back to the point that it didn't really hide anything. Armored boots with thigh-socks that looked a lot sturdier than normal socks. Armored gloves. A freaking cape, dark red on the inside and black on the outside.
Faith managed to close her mouth as Fate held out her hand for Faith to take. "Bitchin'."
"Take my hand," Fate told her.
Faith refused to gulp, and grabbed on. It suddenly felt like she was floating in water, only without the water. Then they were moving. The ground fell away and the wind roared in her ears as the town screamed by below them. Faith yelled, and it was absolutely a whoop of joy and without any doubt not a yelp of fear, and if anyone said different Faith would kick their teeth in.
The car rolled to a stop at the curb in front of the school and Joyce put it in park. Oz and Cordelia got out of the back as Giles and Joyce got out of the front. Oz shut his door and stood back as Kendra and their new addition leaped down from the ski rack.
Joyce came around the front of the car and looked up at the school building nervously. "Is there... anything we should do first?"
"I, I don't believe so, no," Giles offered.
"Right," Cordelia said impatiently. "Oz uses his weregirl powers - "
"Allomancy," Oz put in. He wasn't really a weregirl, if there even was such a thing. It was just a side effect, and he even had a few guesses about why it happened. Allomancy was physical like the body's version of magitech or something... magibiology? Probably why he kept the powers, actually...
" - hide from the ghostly domestic dispute duo and get Giles and Joyce to their marks," Cordelia recited. "Then we wait and watch and hope the dead couple get over themselves."
"Yes, thank you for that, er, summation, Cordelia," Giles said, polishing his glasses.
"My mentor will join us shortly, with another," Homura spoke up. "We are both able to act quickly, should a problem occur."
"And who is dis mentor?" Kendra asked suspiciously.
Homura merely pointed. Oz glanced in the indicated direction and ignited tin. Homura didn't even blink at his sudden sex change. No surprise there at all. Oz would have to think about what that meant, later. For now, her enhanced senses easily spotted the glint of a golden twin-tailed comet within an empty patch of black shadow shooting across the backdrop of stars.
Whatever it was circled the school once before it came in for a landing. It was a girl, with brilliant golden blonde hair and some kind of elaborate black fantasy outfit and a polearm. Cape girl had another girl by the hand, this one in painted-on leather pants and denim jacket.
They touched down, and the girl in leather gave herself a little shake. "Woo."
"Are you alright?"
"Five by five. That fuckin' rocked!"
Homura gestured to cape girl. "This is Fate Harlaown, and..."
"Yo," leather girl greeted with a lazy wave. "I'm Faith."
Kendra glared at Homura. "Ah do not like dealing wit' unknowns during dis operation."
"Aren't you just backup on this one?" Cordelia put in helpfully.
"Your plan is sound," Homura said. "Barring unforeseen circumstances, we will not interfere."
"Well, I appreciate your support, as I'm sure we all do," Joyce said politely.
Oz nodded noncommittally and ignited copper. She spread her coppercloud to cover Giles and Joyce. "Let's go."
Leaving Kendra and Cordelia with the strangers, Oz kept the two adults of their group close as she led them into the school. They quickly made their way to the second-floor hallway where the ghostly reenactment always seemed to begin.
Oz pulled her coppercloud back until it was only covering herself and stepped out of the way. She wondered if she should hide. The coppercloud hid her from magic, but if the spirits saw her through their victim's physical eyes, would they recognize her? Oz stepped back, half around a corner, while Giles and Joyce stood around awkwardly.
"So, um," Joyce said to fill the silence. "Do you know why those girls would want to know about Buffy?"
"I'm, I'm afraid not," Giles admitted. "Their manner of dress is rather striking. I do find it odd that a group of such skilled and distinctive magic users would go unmentioned in any of the journals."
"But they do use magic, right?" Joyce asked. "That means they're probably interested in Buffy for..." she trailed off and pointed down. "And not..." she pointed up.
"Er, I'm not so sure we ought to assume so," Giles said. "Buffy made quite a name for herself during that business at Cheyenne Mountain. Even in certain circles, she is known as Fae, rather than, than her former occupation."
"You don't think they want to make trouble for them, do you?" Joyce worried, glancing out at the empty night sky. The ship was somewhere below the horizon, currently.
"That remains to be seen," Giles told her. "All I can say, is..." Giles paused. "You can't make me disappear just because you say it's over."
Whoa, that was not Giles talking. Showtime.
Joyce suddenly swayed like she was drunk and an electric spark popped from her hand to the nearby railing. "The's nnnnnnn... there'ssssssssss no way way we can be together, no way we can no way people will ever unnnnnnnnnnnnnnderstand. Acscepscepscepscepscept it."
"Is that what this is about?" Giles demanded. "What other people think?"
"No!" Joyce denied, steadying. "I juuuust want you to have some kind of normal life. We can never have that. Don't you see?"
"I don't give a damn about a normal life," Giles insisted. "I'm going crazy not seeing you. I think about you every minute!"
Joyce's face crumpled in anguish. "I know." She reached for Giles, tenderly caressing his face. "But it's over. It has to be."
Turning away as her voice broke, Joyce tried to leave, but Giles chased after her.
"Come back here! We're not finished!" Giles shouted, catching Joyce by the arm. "You don't care anymore? Is that it?"
"It doesn't matter," Joyce said brokenly. "It doesn't matter what I feel."
Giles shook her roughly. "Then tell me you don't love me. Say it!"
"Is that what you need to hear?" Joyce asked. "I don't. I don't. Now let me go."
"No," Giles snarled. "A person doesn't just wake up one day and stop loving somebody."
Joyce sniffled, obviously trying very hard not to cry. Giles finally let her go and took a step back... only to pull a small revolver out from behind him.
"Love is forever," Giles stated lowly.
Joyce backed away in fright. "Oh god..."
Giles aimed at her chest as she kept backing away. "I'm not afraid to use it. I swear. If I can't be with you - don't walk away from me, bitch!"
"Oh my god," Joyce whimpered as she turned and ran.
Rather than shooting her in the back, Giles chased her again, bursting through the swinging doors out onto the balcony. "Stop! Stop it! Don't make me!"
Joyce stopped and slowly turned around. "Alright. Just... You know you don't want to do this. Let's both, just calm down." Joyce carefully moved towards him. "Now give me the gun."
"Don't! Don't do that, damnit!" Giles snapped. "Don't talk to me like I'm some stupid - "
Oz flinched from the gunshot that rang out. Joyce staggered back, numbly holding a hand to where the bullet had struck her. There was no wound, of course, but she acted like she saw blood on her fingers.
"James," Joyce whispered.
Giles watched in horror as Joyce tumbled over the railing and thudded to the concrete path below.
It was a rare enough event that Oma went out of her way to watch for such things. She could sense the release of energy from a breaking loop, and followed it. Her awareness danced from star to star until she arrived at a familiar planet. She could sense the decades of helpless anger and regret winding tight around a new burning star of unthinking hope.
It was on a hellmouth, as these things so often were, in a school for human youth. Two spirits puppeting mortals. Briefly, Oma paused, curious, as she noticed several prominent minds. The Childans? Huh, what were they doing here? Oma moved her awareness away and focused on the two people she was here for.
The one controlling the man sat listening to a music player, toying with a conjured weapon. The one in the woman came up behind him and pushed the gun away when he pointed it at his head.
He twisted around and gasped. "Grace!"
"Don't do this," she told him gently.
"But," he choked. "But I killed you."
"It was an accident," she assured him, running a hand tenderly through his hair. "It wasn't your fault."
"It is my fault," he protested brokenly. "How could I..."
She shushed him softly. "I'm the one who should be sorry, James. You thought I stopped loving you, but I never did. I loved you with my last breath." She shushed him again when he tried to speak. "No more tears."
She leaned in and met his lips in a kiss of desperate longing, and that was enough. Oma felt their relief soak outwards and dissolve their threads of anguished need. The knots of emotion began to relax and unravel, stalling the psionic engine that kept them alive.
This was what Oma was here for.
Oma wasn't allowed to help mortals ascend anymore. She couldn't save them. The current gods wouldn't let her. But these were spirits. They were already halfway there, and the rules were much fuzzier. With the Powers That Be busy rubbing Janus' nose in his mistake until he was as close to dead as an ascended being could get without being erased utterly, they might not bother to stop her. James and Grace. Them, maybe she could save.
They were on the cusp of oblivion. Spirits were still embedded in base reality, a neural net of electrical impulses sparking through empty air, maintained by a self-reinforcing psionic feedback loop. James and Grace didn't know any better. No one had taught them how these things worked, and they weren't enough in their right minds to understand new concepts anyway.
Reaching into reality, Oma used her own power to shore up the fading spirits. A light show bloomed into being above the kissing couple, swirling cosmic tendrils like a living galaxy reduced to fit in a single room.
James and Grace 'woke up' enough to conclude that Oma was an angel. While awkward, it was useful to have them predisposed to listen to her. Gently, Oma guided their minds. The power that allowed them to affect the world and exist as they were, Oma showed them how to follow back to its source.
Oma pulled her factor out of reality and felt pleased. James and Grace were safe, and the Powers That Be hadn't stopped her. Now all she had to do was teach them the basics so they didn't go insane from sensory deprivation.
Oz let out a breath as the light show ended and extinguished her metals. Giles and Joyce... were still kissing. It didn't look like they were slowing down, either. Oz quirked an eyebrow as Joyce pushed Giles' tweed blazer off his shoulders and Giles' hands went under the hem of Joyce's blouse.
Oz coughed and they both froze in mid-grope. "Y'know if you guys are good, I can come back later."
Giles slowly pulled away from Joyce, making awkward noises. Joyce blushed.
"Well, um, I think it worked?" Joyce offered.
"Mister Giles! Dis girl insists she is de slayer," Kendra nearly whined. "Tell her she cannot be de slayer! Ah am de slayer!"
"Chill out, Special K," Faith said, sounding amused. "I can learn to share."
Kendra scowled as Giles, Joyce and Oz rejoined the others by the car. The other two strangers were standing off to the side still looking like something out of a fantasy movie, while an impatient Cordelia stood watching the standoff between Kendra and Faith with an exasperated expression.
"Erm, Faith was it?" Giles asked, stepping in.
"Yup," Faith agreed, giving him a once-over. "Lemme guess. You're the watcher?"
Giles peered at her. "Who might your watcher be?"
"That's DD, uh, Diana Dormer," Faith admitted, suddenly more subdued.
"Indeed?" Giles said. "Is she here as well?"
"Nope," Faith said, slouching carelessly back against Joyce's car. She pointed over at the nearest Fae pod. "DD's in one of those back in Boston. We were headin' here, though. Guess I didn't wanna wait around."
"Okay, she is another slayer," Cordelia said, dismissing Faith as she waved and arm at Fate and Homura. "I want to know what the heck their deal is. Is this a Halloween thing?"
"Halloween?" Fate repeated in confusion.
"Vin didn't see anyone who looked like them," Oz put in quietly.
Homura merely glanced at her 'mentor' and subtly shook her head. Oz quirked an eyebrow as the two of them seemed to have a silent conversation. Finally, Fate nodded softly.
Fate took a deep breath to brace herself and spoke, "We are part of an interstellar and interdimensional magical disaster prevention and relief force, called the Time-Space Administration Bureau. When news reached us of the Fae's sudden appearance and the upset that followed, our ship was sent to this planet to meet them and evaluate their intentions."
"Wait wait wait," Cordelia said. "You two are aliens? Like, real aliens? From another planet and everything?"
Faith snorted and gave Cordelia a very strange look. "What, you didn't notice all the alien shit that's been all of everywhere since last year?"
"Or rather the thing with Antarctica," Oz added as a wry aside.
"Please," Cordelia scoffed. "Th - "
"Cordelia!" Giles snapped.
Cordelia huffed. "What? Why does everybody always yell my name? I'm not deaf."
"Um," Joyce spoke up hesitantly. "Can you girls prove all this?"
After a moment's hesitation, Fate nodded. "What proof would satisfy you?"
Tomoko plodded up the stairs to her room, sulking. None of her stupid classmates had even noticed her change. Yuu-chan hadn't even noticed, until they were at that store they went to and Tomoko had needed measuring for her new bras.
Shutting her door, Tomoko pulled off her uniform top and glared at her reflection in her dressing mirror. How much bigger did she have to make them?! The luscious titflesh on display in her new racy underwear was every bit as impressive as Yuu-chan's! And she could actually be sure of that, now that her memory was infallible.
Tomoko had the biggest tits in her class and she was the first of them to use a pod. And she still wasn't popular! Tomoko sighed. She just didn't get it.
On seventeen occasions so far, Tomoko had caught herself thinking it wasn't worth it. It was another thing her infallible memory had forced her to notice. The sheer relief she felt when she got to be alone after a day of trying to figure out how to make herself popular. Maybe being popular just wasn't for her.
No! No! She couldn't just give up! Not making friends. Never going on a date. Never having a boyfriend. Never having sex! Tomoko couldn't just accept that as her fate!
...not that she was a pervert or anything.
Tomoko gave her reflection a flat look. Yeah, she didn't believe that even while she was thinking it. Her memories didn't - couldn't - lie anymore. Forget the porn. Everybody her age who had a computer looked at porn. But all those dirty fantasies and almost-gropes on Yuu-chan... The way Yuu-chan's hands made her feel when she'd been helping size Tomoko for bras...
Shivering pleasantly, Tomoko went and flopped down on her bed, going face-first into her pillow with a grunt and not bothering to turn her head so she could breath. Her new bra dug into her ribs as her awesome breasts flattened under her, but Tomoko couldn't bring herself to care. It wasn't like anyone else cared about her tits.
Tomoko slammed her fist into the pillow next to her head. Her virginity was like an evil oni determined to haunt her until the end of time! It wasn't fair! And she couldn't even look at porn anymore because her computer was wrecked!
At that thought, Tomoko paused, feeling an embarrassed flush of heat prickle over her skin. The dream world. She'd played around in the white void, making objects and stuff appear and building a rudimentary scene, but she hadn't really done anything with the dream world yet. She hadn't even known about it until recently.
But it was like the Fae version of the internet, only with content from thousands of years of people using it. Tomoko turned her attention inward and her real body on her bed fell away. All at once, she was standing naked in a white void, jittery with anticipation.
The archive bloomed into Tomoko's awareness, an endless catalog of, well, everything a population of trillions upon trillions ever dreamed up over the millennia. Whatever picture she had in her mind, the closest matches presented themselves to her awareness, organized in an ever-shifting multidimensional mosaic.
The first time she'd done this, she'd just looked for arbitrary objects. Furniture. Cars. Trees. Buildings. This time she was looking for whole scenarios. Complete environments with NPCs and scripted behaviors. And she'd been thinking about porn when she started.
Tomoko caught herself drooling a little as a nervous perverse giggle bubbled up out of her chest. So many choices! A generic orgy? A slave girl fantasy? One guy on a bed in a room? Tentacle rape? Molestation on a train? Tomoko's legs knocked together as she felt something wet on her thighs.
Just viewing the archive had her wet to the knees. She could think of anything, and there were so many scenarios that matched. The more outlandish ones carried 'nonstandard physiology' warnings and the more involved stories had 'driven by subconscious expectation' warnings for the NPCs.
There was even bug rape.
"Gah!" Tomoko whipped her head to the side and beat on her own skull as she ranted, "Why is it always bug rape?! I'm not into bug rape! That dream didn't mean anything and didn't even turn me on!"
But looking at some of the scenarios in this part of the catalog kind of did. Gah! No! Well, maybe, much later... Gah! Tomoko punched herself in the forehead again.
Grunting, Tomoko mentally grabbed one of the simplest scenarios and instantiated it. There were so many exciting scenarios that Tomoko was eager to try, but the truth was she hadn't ever even kissed a boy. Not even that basic thing. So, she decided to go for the vanilla stuff first. She wanted to kiss a boy, feel his body against hers, feel him on top of her holding her down, feel him push his hard throbbing...
Tomoko shivered pleasantly and looked around. The white void had been replaced by a simple circular room with walls of black stone, adorned by brightly burning torches. The floor was rich red carpet, and the majority of it was taken up by a huge round bed with shiny white sheets and lots of shiny red pillows.
A beautiful, wiry bishonen boy sat on the edge of the bed, facing her. His nude body was all lean sculpted muscle as he sat there with his penis jutting up from between his thighs and one hand out towards Tomoko, palm up.
The scenario was still incorporeal, frozen in time. Tomoko could alter it, add, remove, or change things, but she was too impatient to do that right now. With a mental push, her bare feet sank into the plush carpet, the flames on the torches resumed crackling, and the boy started breathing as his eyes focused on her.
Tomoko felt her heart try to leap out of her chest. Her breaths came in shallow gasps and her whole body trembled horribly.
Tomoko repeatedly reminded herself that this wan't a real boy. She was safe. She couldn't mess this up by saying the wrong thing, or by not saying anything. At the same time, he was real enough. Real enough to feel exactly like the real thing. Real enough that she wanted it so so badly.
Shaking, Tomoko reached out and took his hand.
His lips quirked as he pulled her closer. "That's it. Come here, cute thing."
Their legs touched. He was shockingly warm. The feel of skin was so vividly unmistakable. He let go of her hands and grabbed her trembling hips. He slid his hands around to her rear and Tomoko swayed, bursts of pleasure going off behind her eyes as his warm living hands groped her butt.
Something hot and wet engulfed her nipple and Tomoko's eyes flew open with a little moaned gasp to find the boy suckling at her breast. She felt a spasm in her core. His hands kneaded her butt, stretching and opening her sex to the air, and she felt another spasm. And then more...
Tomoko sagged against the boy, wrapping her arms around his head.
"What?" Tomoko blurted in dazed surprise. "I came already?"
After a few moments, the boy pulled away from her breasts and stood up. He picked her up and set her down on the bed on her back. He crawled over her body, and Tomoko started trembling in anticipation again as he gently lifted and spread her legs. She felt his hot firmness pressing at her entrance, but his mouth covered hers and cut off her moan of desire.
His cock split open her pussy at the same time his tongue invaded her mouth. Her hands clutched at his sides as his body settled on top of her, crushing her into the bed and filling her to the point of ecstasy. After that, there wasn't much room for coherent thought.
Buffy juked in the air, yanking herself towards a rock outcropping and bounding off to the side. Razor teeth snapped shut as the aviaide's left head smashed into the rock behind her, shattering the surface and sending a cloud of stone chips tumbling across the valley.
Buffy grabbed a treebranch and swung, reversing direction and smashing feet-first into the monstrous bird's dazed head. Its skull crumpled against the outcropping in an explosion of blood and brain-bits. Buffy rebounded upwards, pulling her arms in for a spinning flip that flung the blood off her feet as she sailed out into the open air where she'd be less mobile. The droplets of blood nailed the aviade's other head right in the eyes.
Four great grey-black wings, like those on a bird of prey, beat the air as the aviaide's remaining head twisted on it's long sinuous neck and roared in pain. By the time it focused on her, Buffy was already more than halfway across the valley.
Um, hi, honey. Do you have a moment? came a message from her mom.
Trailing blood from its neck stump, the aviaide snarled and flapped hard to catch up to her. Grinning, Buffy suddenly halted in the air and shot back towards the surprised beast. She drove a fist into its snout, dazing it, and used one of its teeth as a handhold to swing around onto its neck.
Wrapping her arms around the tree-trunk thickness, Buffy dug her fingers in and wrenched sideways. The aviaide's remaining neck broke with a thunderous crack and the beast went limp in Buffy's arms. Together, they crashed into the ground with the aviaide's remaining momentum, and Buffy savored the rush of victory.
Taking long, deep breaths, Buffy lifted away from the corpse and zipped towards the valley's exit. The way she was feeling after the fight, she really wanted to find Xander and jump on his cock, but she figured she shouldn't ignore her mom.
Hey, Mom, Buffy finally replied as she flew out into the diffuse white of the unused areas of the ship. What's up?
Well, um, Rupert and I are speaking with a pair of nice girls who say they want to meet you, on behalf of an alien magic government of some sort, Joyce sent.
Buffy faltered, nearly clipping a wall. What?! Who? How? Why? Are they for real?
Rupert thinks so, Joyce replied. This girl, Homura, showed up at the house asking about you. She and her friend say this Time-Space Administration Bureau wants some assurance that you don't have a hidden adgenda.
What are they doing there? Buffy asked. How did they even know to talk to you?
Joyce replied after a worrying pause. I don't know. Should I ask them?
No, Buffy decided. They want to meet us, right? We can ask them ourselves.
Buffy zoomed into the meadow and skidded to a halt next to the plateau. Xander was sitting sandwiched between Willow-rhom astride his lap and Willow-icos as a backrest. All three of them looked over questioningly at Buffy's dramatic entrance.
"Guys!" Buffy sent her memory of the conversation to Xander and the Willows. "Something's up."
They say they're willing to let you choose the place and time, Joyce sent. What should I tell them?
"Oh boy..." the two present Willows sighed.
"Hey, looking kinda bloody there, Buff," Xander noted.
Buffy glanced down and blushed slightly. Her nude body was streaked with drying blood. except around her hips where her wetness had spread damp streaks through the red. Huh. She hadn't realized her kill had gotten her that worked up. Focusing briefly, Buffy used her Utility Cloud to draw away the moisture and scour the residue off her skin.
Seeing herself clean, Buffy perked up and vaulted onto the plateau, sliding in next to the Xander sandwich. "So what do you guys think?"
Willow-rhom wiggled on Xander's lap, his full length hidden inside her. "Mm. Well, traditionally we're supposed to ask for neutral territory, right?"
"I don't know," Buffy said. "I mean, who are these people?"
In response, Willow-icos leaned forward and tucked Xander's shoulder under her chin. The screen at the end of the plateau resolved into an image of Sunnydale at night, focusing on a group of people. "There. I located your mom and pulled a visual feed from the sensor fog datastream... wow."
"So that's them?" Xander asked. "They sure dress the part."
"I think we should see what they want," Willow-rhom said, looking between Xander and Buffy. "This seems like it might be important. And... as to how we should meet them, I've got an idea."
Willow explained. Buffy smirked and nodded in agreement.
Tomoko came back to her real body and started giggling into her pillow. So much better than a dream. She'd never realized before just how... low-fidelity normal dreams were. That had not been like a dream at all. As far as Tomoko was concerned, she'd been awake. Maybe it wasn't real, but it felt like it had really happened, just somewhere else. She was getting wet just from the memory.
That gorgeous body on top of her, hard muscles moving under warm skin. Feeling that was so much better than just imagining it or seeing it, satisfying some even baser need she couldn't put into words. His hard cock splitting her open and filling her, slamming into her. The deliciously slippery heat and the electric pleasure that jolted through her with every wet, meaty collision of their bodies, carrying her up and over her body's threshold over and over.
Tomoko wanted it again, and more, and harder.
With a mental shift, she was back in the white void and the archive opened in her head.
Buffy appeared on the lunar surface in the flash of a transporter beam, on a wide plain somewhere between the Apollo 11 and Apollo 17 landing sites. She wiggled her toes in the lunar sand with a little smile.
In her hand, she held the micro-scale terraforming seed Willow had given her. Holding it out, Buffy let it fall into the grey soil. The seed turned black and melted, soaking into the ground. The black stain spread, creeping outwards. It flowed around Buffy's feet, tingling slightly on her skin. This was actually slightly dangerous, without a Giaa. Not to Buffy or any other Fae, but if there'd been, like, a human in a spacesuit, this stuff would eat them no different than the lunar soil.
Once there was a perfectly flat, perfectly round circle of subtly rippling blackness fifteen meters across, the seed stopped growing. The blackness rippled more visibly, and from the center of the circle a spot of white appeared and grew until the black was gone and that fifteen meter circle of lunar surface was ready to become anything they wanted.
Xander and Willow-icos beamed in inside a shuttle. The translucent sphere settled at the edge of the circle and they emerged. Willow skipped along in the lunar gravity, gave Buffy a hug and grope, and stood back with her eyes closed in concentration.
Slowly, the utter silence and numbness of hard vacuum gave way to the whisper of air.
"Okay, the ionic air shield is up and working just enough for sound to carry," Willow reported.
Xander looked around. "What does this remind you of?"
Buffy traded a look with Willow and shrugged.
"An oasis in the desert!" Xander announced. "We should totally do like a tropical theme."
"Ooh, yeah," Willow chirped. "Like with palm trees, and a little lagoon..." Willow stopped and pouted. "Only, if I turn the air shield up enough for liquid water, it'd be dangerous to our guests."
"Right. Hallucinations and seizures. Not quite the impression we're going for," Xander said.
"Hey, I did the best I could, mister, and just be glad an air shield's a lot simpler than a brain-health reading program and I only had a day to put it together and how about something more in the enchanted glade type look?" Willow proposed, proving she didn't need all that much air to babble.
"Or we could do the ultramodern everything's made of white plastic and glass thing," Buffy threw out there. "Or how about winter wonderland? We can do snow with this much air, right?"
Willow shrugged. "Oh sure, but how about..."
Take a parabolic arc, lay it on its side, line the inside with consoles and chairs on a metallic white floor, and the result would be close to the basic layout of the first tier of the Arthra's spacious bridge. Vast windows curved upwards, enclosing a volume large enough to contain a small house and doubling as a compound holographic display screen. At the back of the first tier, the second consisted of a raised stage with the captain's command chair overlooking the first, and a small transport platform against the rear wall.
Dressed sharply in her dark brown Capital Defense uniform, Hayate smoothed her skirt down as she prepared to give her report. The command staff of the Arthra, Chrono, Nanoha and Fate, Madoka and Homura, and her own knights, waited for her to start. Behind her, a detailed scan of a Fae pod slowly rotated, next to several looping video clips of various people using personal magic.
"Some of you know some of this," Hayate said, smiling at Madoka who'd done more than her share of tracking down terrestrial magic-users who'd gone through the change. "I am happy to report that, in all of the cases we investigated, fae-touched individuals showed no detectable effects on their linker cores."
Several of them didn't bother to hide sighs of relief. Hayate went on to give more details, but that was the one critical question she'd been assigned to answer. A linker core was literally the source-of-magic's recognition of an individual identity. That fae-touched hedge witches showed no effect on their meager linker cores wasn't absolute proof, but given that linker cores can't be directly affected by nonmagical means, and that the Fae pods used no magic that anyone had been able to detect, it was very promising evidence.
"Thank you, Investigator Yagami," Chrono said when she finished. "Next, thanks to the lead Major Carter gave us, Miss Akemi and Fate were able to arrange a meeting with the three Fae leaders. What can you tell us about their character?"
The massive holographic display blanked and then displayed images of three faces, a blonde girl, a red-headed girl, and brunette boy.
Homura and Fate glanced at each other, and Homura spoke, "I was able to question Joyce Summers several times with the aid of my Precognition spell. She was... proud. Once, she even referred to this Buffy as her daughter. Her opinion of all three of them was consistently high."
"Isn't Buffy Rea-Val older than this woman?" Signum mused.
"So?" Vita asked with a pointed look at Hayate.
Hayate, who was in fact much younger than her dutiful knights, shot Signum a sweet smile. The fuchsia-haired warrior went all stoic in embarrassment. It was so cute.
"She reminded me of your mother, Nanoha," Fate put in softly.
Nanoha made a thoughtful face. "I wonder how they met."
Homura fidgeted like she was about to say something, but she hesitated and looked to Madoka. It was pretty obvious the couple was having a telepathic conversation. Madoka's golden eyes suddenly widened in obvious surprise, followed by a frown of worried contemplation.
"We'll ask," Fate told Nanoha. She turned to Chrono. "Who were you planning on sending?"
"I believe it would be prudent to send a party of three, for the sake of even sides," Chrono said. "I believe the obvious choice would be to send our Aces. Fate, they will expect. Hayate, because she is lead on the case. And Nanoha... just in case aggressive friendship is necessary."
"Eh! Chrono-kun!" Nanoha protested.
Hayate snickered demurely as Fate touched Nanoha's arm and smiled affectionately. Nanoha accepted the teasing with good grace. The power of memes could not be denied. There was a reason the docudrama about them had Nanoha's name in the title.
"Alright, be ready in fifteen hours," Chrono told them. "Dismissed."
As the assembled crew broke up, Nanoha promptly grabbed Fate's hand and gave her an excited look. Hayate grinned knowingly when Fate blushed and nodded. Nanoha dragged an unprotesting Fate off by the hand.
Hayate sidled over to Madoka and Homura. "So was there something worrying you?"
"Well, um..." Madoka began sheepishly.
"I don't know if its important," Homura said. "It's only an odd hunch. It'll be in my written report after I think it over."
"Fair enough," Hayate conceeded. "You two have a good night."
"We will," Madoka said, giving Homura a tender smile.
The tenseness seemed to bleed right out of those deep violet eyes as Homura stopped paying attention to everything that wasn't Madoka. With a content little smile, Homura accepted Madoka's arm around her waist as they turned to go.
Hayate watched them walk away and clasped her hands under her chin. "Aww, true love."
(Good gods, this took me a month to write? I suck.)