Chapter 10 Jigsaw Pieces
A/N. (Eh, apologies. One day late. But still, given my previous record with updates, I'd say it's not too bad this time, yes?
Thanks to Kim for her review; the Council visit is indeed very different this time, and yes, mostly due to Elspeth. I haven't quite decided if Lydia should drool so obviously over Spike this time… I have my own plans for dear old Spike in the next few chapters that hopefully you'll all enjoy. Let's just say things might be turning out a little more Spuffy, a little more quickly now : ).
I hope you all enjoy this chapter. And as always, constructive criticism and reviews are much appreciated.
8 8 8
Perfect. Her voice sang in his head and he grinned almost animalistically as he dodged, countered, and sprung to the attack again. She was perfect. They were perfect.
This was perfect.
She was bouncing on the balls of her feet, arms at the ready just below her beautiful smile. He smirked back at her as they circled each other, every step a light touch upon the ground before moving on, ever ready to…
Pounce. He leapt forwards with an experimental jab to the face. She blocked it easily, tossing his hand away and moving in close to flip him over his hip. Rolling with her, he sprung to his feet a meter away and launched himself into a series of spin kicks, forcing her backwards from the centre of the room towards the assembled audience. Just before it seemed he might break through her balance, she nimbly dodged forwards and broke the pattern, scissoring her own legs against his and bringing him crashing to the ground. He snarled appreciatively through his grin, and then lunged for her again.
"Why isn't his chip firing?" Xander whispered, his eyes wide as he saw the two warriors blurring across wide expanse of the training room. "I mean, he's attacking her, isn't he?"
Giles' keen ears pricked, even as he watched his Slayer and the vampire in fascination. "Yes," he muttered uncomfortably. "I'd like to know why Spike isn't feeling the effects of the chip as well."
"It's because he's consciously making the decision not to hurt her," Cassandra piped up, just as Spike roared in seeming annoyance and threw himself at the Slayer. With a mischievous twist to her lips, Buffy dodged him once more, showing off her incredible speed, before moving in with a hard roundhouse kick of her own.
Spike went flying.
"He's consciously making the decision not to hurt her?" Giles demanded, astonished. He resisted the urge to peel off his glasses, clean them, and take another look. "He appeared fairly intent on causing her bodily damage with that last attack!"
"It's just a dance…" Daniel finally realised, slowly, as Buffy streaked towards the fallen Spike with blinding speed. "They're just dancing."
Cassandra smiled, and couldn't help herself. "That's all they've ever done."
Willow and Tara looked at her strangely, but Anya smiled as if she understood and linked arms with the still gaping Xander.
Spike didn't move as the Slayer approached. He was still and crumpled against the wall that he'd been thrown against, and for a moment Daniel worried. But then, even as Buffy raised her hand to flip him over and initiate the fake staking action, Spike raised his head.
Lydia screamed.
Fredrick let out a rather unmanly squeal.
Quentin Travers rolled his eyes.
In gameface, Spike coiled smoothly to his feet, just in time to throw out a punch. Buffy didn't blink. With half a second to go before her forehead connected with his fist, she'd twisted her body to the right, ran up the wall using her momentum, and somersaulted to Spike's right. Only she was close enough to see him still grinning at her through his elongated fangs. He spun around and unleashed a low kick to her legs, but she jumped over it easily and dove forwards with a low punch to his abdomen. He twisted, but she grazed him and the force of her blow was still enough to make him stagger back and break his stance. With a victorious grin, she moved forwards with the intent of a predator, but Spike just managed to duck his head under her finishing punch, coming up from underneath her. He grasped her arm tightly, digging in nails slightly elongated from his demonic transformation and wrenched her around.
Collectively, the audience winced.
But they'd reacted too soon. Instead of the Slayer's shoulder popping out of its socket, she pushed into the move, launching herself forwards in a graceful dive roll across the floor and sending Spike flying. Again.
Giles shook his head in incredulity.
It had been a while since he had accompanied his Slayer on her patrols. And although they had been training together like normal, he didn't think he'd seen Buffy like this before, unleashed, her entire body caught up in the joy and rush of the fight as she and Spike spun around each other like moths drawn irresistibly to the flame.
"It's incredible, isn't it?" Tara murmured.
He didn't spare her a glance, so rapt was he in studying his Slayer's moves. "Yes, quite."
Cassandra smiled slightly at the two, remembering the hours she had spent enraptured in front of the television screen, watching the blonde pair in front of her dance in their eternal fight. She turned away for a moment to sneak a look at Daniel, just to see how he was taking this raw display of power. His mouth hung agape and his eyes were slightly glassy. She couldn't help but giggle a little at his expression.
By the time she turned back, it was over. Buffy straddled Spike, pinning his hips down to the ground beneath hers and holding her hand to his chest in an imitation of a stake. Spike was panting under her, seemingly spent, while the Slayer appeared as if she had barely broken a sweat. There was a cheeky grin of triumph decorating her face, and if the observers had been at the correct angle, they would have seen the look of quiet adoration shining from Spike's.
Perhaps it was lucky. Xander might have died from a heart attack. As chance would have it, however, Buffy chose at that moment to glance down into the naked eyes of her sparring partner. Everyone watched as her smile faltered and changed to a perfect 'o', before a faint tinge of red brushed her cheeks and she scrambled off him. Once she was up, she hesitantly offered a hand and pulled him to his feet. They stood in an awkward silence for a moment, before the atmosphere was broken by the sound of Quentin's hands clapping together.
"Capital," the Head Watcher murmured. "Quite capital. It appears you have trained her well in our absence, Rupert."
Giles coughed. "Indeed. Well, Buffy is far more than she seems, that is for certain."
"Be that as it may," a sullen voice sounded from the edge of the group. "She's not good enough."
8 8 8
If anyone else had been there, they would have recognised the eerie look set upon Dawn's face as a mirror of the resolve that settled on Buffy's countenance every time the Apocalypse reared its head again. The younger Summers sat within a semi-circle of books, all flicked open to various pages, her eyes darting from one to the next.
"The Old Ones," she read out aloud, and then frowned. "The Icari," she read off another. "Dammit, why can't they just have 'green energy' in the stupid index," she muttered. "That would just make things so much easier…"
Typically, just as she felt the need to voice that comment, her eyes fell upon the book immediately to her left. The word 'emerald' leapt out at her, and she eagerly snatched it up and found the page number. But her elation quickly died down as she kept on reading.
"… power to stop the ritual." She frowned again and turned to the page beforehand to find the beginning of the sentence, but discovered that someone with a careless inksplot had managed to blot most of it from her view. She frowned again, and then flipped back to the page to keep reading.
"Within the ritual, the shell is given greater strength and solidity. It must take place upon the Hellmouth, but only at certain dates in the lunar calendar, to be referred to in Table CXII in the appendices. When all the conditions are met, the vessel is made stronger, the Host more powerful, and the path to reawaken the Silent Death within is begun."
Dawn sucked in her breath and wondered how Giles could remain sane with such cryptic texts. If these were the tomes he consulted to make sense of prophecies, she couldn't understand how he could even hope to find any answers before he first found something to decipher these.
"The Silent Death? How is all of this even connected…?"
Even as she grumbled, Dawn was scanning the index again. The mass of words seemed to blur in front of her, but she blinked impatiently and kept going. It had to be here somewhere. Even if it just referred her back to the same place.
"Page 374," she grinned triumphantly as she finally found it. Settling the book back down on the ground, she thumbed through the pages quickly. But as it seemed to take forever, her patience grew thin and she began muttering to herself.
"Why does the page always have to the one furthest from the index? For that matter, can't they at least enlarge the text, it's starting to hurt my eyes. And…"
She stopped.
And stared.
And the picture of the black knife stared right back at her.
8 8 8
Amidst the general sounds of disquiet at Fredrick's comment, Buffy scowled. Whether out of some newfound bravery or sheer misplaced idiocy, the young Watcher stood his ground as the tiny Slayer stalked across the training room to him, her eyes blazing.
"I've just about had enough of you," she grabbed the front of his coat and lifted him up into the air. Fredrick sputtered in rage and fear and fury as she hung him, dangling a few centimetres off the ground. "You seem to forget one thing. I am the Vampire Slayer, and I have more power in me than your tweed-stuffed brain can even begin to comprehend. And I know now, from looking into your eyes, just why the Council has come back here today."
She threw him contemptuously away, and then began to scan each Council member keenly. They all shrunk back except for Elspeth, who regarded the Slayer with a small smile. Buffy nodded in satisfaction as if an internal point had been proven, and then stepped back to address them all.
"You guys didn't come all the way from England to determine whether or not I was good enough to be let back in, or even to tell me about Glory. You could have done that over the phone. No. You came to beg me to let you back in. To give your jobs, your lives some semblance of meaning."
Travers cleared his throat. "Actually…"
She threw up a hand. "Let. Me. Finish."
He subsided.
She continued. "You're Watchers. Without a Slayer, you're pretty much just watchin' Masterpiece Theater. You can't stop Glory. You can't do anything with the information you have except maybe publish it in the 'Everyone Thinks We're Insane-O's Home Journal.'"
"Well… actually…"
The look she threw his way defied interruption.
"So. Here's how it's gonna work. From what I've seen here today, there have been changes in the Council. I don't know, maybe you decided to actually do some real thinking after you realised you could no longer control me. But with the exception of this idiot," she spared a disgusted look at Fredrick who still lay lopsided on the floor where she'd thrown him, a glare of pure hatred emanating from his eyes, "You now seem reasonable enough to listen."
She held Travers' gaze now with her own. "So. You're gonna tell me everything you know. Then you're gonna go away. You'll contact me if and when you have any further information about Glory. Oh, and Mr. Giles will stay here as my official Watcher, reinstated at full salary..."
Giles coughed. "Retroactive."
"… to be paid retroactively from the month he was fired," Buffy finished smoothly. "Is that clear?"
Travers inclined his head. "The terms… are acceptable."
From behind, Xander, Anya, Willow and Tara whooped in joy, and then fell into an embarrassed silence at the Watchers' pained yet still inquiring glances. Spike watched the scene with amusement and pride, but then his eyes sharpened again as Fredrick staggered to his feet.
"Uncle!" he cried in a high-pitched voice. "What are you doing?"
"What I planned to do," Travers said tightly, avoiding his nephew's gaze.
"But…"
Finally, the Head Watcher lost patience and rounded on him, his own eyes blazing. "No. Enough, Fredrick! You have spoken far more than befits your place this trip! We have discussed this. Buffy is a powerful Slayer. We can only achieve the objectives of the Council, keeping the world safe, if we work with her, not against her. And if that requires complying to her requests, as long as they are reasonable, then so be it."
No one except Spike noticed Elspeth smile.
"Really, lad," Travers' voice finally softened. "I know that my younger brother pumped some terrible ideas into your head before he died. But it's time to move on."
"No," Fredrick swallowed, his red face draining pale. "No, this can't be. It isn't right. This shouldn't happen!"
Travers' lips tightened. "It should, and it will. Divided as we stand, we shall all fall. In your father's time, in my father's and grandfather's and great-grandfather's time, we have forgotten the true objective of the Council. To guide and help the Slayer to do her duty. That is now what I shall hold true to, and that is now what will happen. If you have a problem with it, I suggest that you find yourself another career."
As Fredrick opened his mouth and then closed it, lost for words, the elder Watchers Colbert and Cameron looked at each other and nodded in realisation. The change was over. The strange internal shift in the Watcher's Council that had begun when Fredrick and Elspeth had appeared was now complete.
"Well," Buffy said lightly. "Now that we've got that cleared up, tell me about Glory. What kind of demon is she?"
The resolute gaze on Travers' face faded. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he looked briefly at his well-polished shoes, and then back at her questioning features.
"Well, that's just the problem. Glory isn't a demon. She's a God."
Buffy stepped back. "Oh."
8 8 8
"There."
Dawn didn't even realise she'd spoken out loud until her breath stopped. One fingernail had unconsciously moved to mark the place before her, and she fixed her bleak gaze onto it.
"Shifting green energy," she read aloud. "A portal into all the dimensions in the universe."
And as she stared at the picture besides the text, a slow, horrible realisation washed over her.