Chapter12 Teamwork

A/N. (I just realised I've forgotten to put a disclaimer up on the last few chapters. Well, that's about to be rectified, because I CLEARLY do not own BtVS; that realm belongs to Joss Whedon, etc. I'm just playing.

Extra note: I am so terribly sorry at the amount of time it took for this chapter to go up. It has actually been sitting in my Documents for ages, and for some reason I thought I'd already uploaded it. So really, my sincere apologies... and thanks for waiting so long!

Heh… and now onto the general Author's note, just a quick one before you guys can delve into the chapter. Uni is just about to start for me, so updates will be less frequent once again, I'm afraid. At the moment, I'm giving myself a 1-2 week deadline; within every chapter posted, between 1-2 weeks there should be another chapter up, and I'm going to try very hard to meet that, but I hope you understand if it doesn't work out quite as well.

Anyway, enough of that. Thanks to Kim for her review again; Buffy and Spike's friendship is indeed progressing, and I'm glad you're enjoying it. : ) .

And thank you to all of you who are still reading! I hope you enjoy again.

8 8 8

They had decided to split up. It had been a conscious decision, born of twin mindsets and their logic following the same path, a warrior's path, and it had taken all of two seconds to communicate what the other was thinking. Then, with the tingles that the others' eyes had left on them still running in their body, they had separated like two dual-wielded blades, perfect and forever a partner no matter how far apart.

Because they were both, ultimately, hunting for the same thing.

Spike ran along the main street of Sunnydale, not caring that people stared at him and his black leather coat as he swished past. He was bleeding, and he knew they stared at that too, but it wasn't of too much consequence because the wound on his face wasn't debilitating, and the scent of his own blood on the air sharpened his nose.

He wasn't used to moving around this much in the daylight, filtered to harmlessness as it was by the clouds. His internal body clock was muttering lividly inside that he should be asleep, but adrenaline was overcoming all weariness in his bones as he ran. Still, the smells of the day were strange and they reminded him with each step into fragrances of soap and shopping and crowds of people that this was unnatural.

But as strong and as confusing as the scent of day was, it had nothing on the trail he was following now. Underneath all of smells of faded sunlight on grass and the humidity of the oncoming storm, cold scales and reptilian blood haunted his nose.

The snake-monster-thing was damn fast, he had to give it that. He'd been chasing it for ten minutes now, after he and Buffy had bunkered down outside Sunnydale Zoo and whispered breathless plans while nursing their wounds. Its trail had led him down here, and he wondered how on the hellmouth everyone was acting so normally if a giant cobra had just snaked within their midst five minutes ago. He shook his blonde head as he ran. The stupidity and denial of these people worried him. The Slayer shouldn't have to work her cute butt off to save idiots who were only going to fall back into danger the second their brains stopped working and they decided that a midnight stroll in the cemetery was a good idea.

Spike shook his head again, grunted in pain as his injured knee half-buckled under him from a bad step, and wrenched his mind back to his task. The mall melted out from his side into a stream of shops, and they continued in a pattern further down, past his line of sight, into…

Wait. This road seemed familiar. Where was the snake-thing going?

Spike slowed outside the gates of Sunnydale Junior High, and then stopped, his brow furrowing in confusion. It was a strange path to take through the town... after the school, there really wasn't much beyond. Residential areas faded into road, a power plant, and then the highway. Somehow, he didn't think the snake was looking for some electric juice.

Not for the first time, Spike wished he'd had time to ask the Slayer what that Glory bint had said while they had been fighting and he'd been trying to kill the demon-hobbit and hold down the snake thing simultaneously. Perhaps she'd have given some clue as to why the hell she'd bothered to raise this bloody thing. Sighing, he shrugged, rubbed his nose, and followed the scent…

As it lingered directly in front of the gates of Sunnydale Junior High, and then made an abrupt turn back into the main street behind him.

That's strange… he thought. Why didn't I see it on the way back? And for that matter, why would it change direction so suddenly…?

Realisation hammered a heartbeat in his chest where there was none.

"Dawn," he whispered, and he began to run.

"Dawn," Buffy breathed as she limped down the street. It was like a prayer in her mind, and it kept her going even as the gash that opened up her jeans on her lower thigh and continued down to her calf screamed in protest. Glory had told the snake-thing after it'd flung Spike off its back to find the Key, and the Key was Dawn. So Spike had to follow it while she limped home to Revello where her sister should be and…

She stopped.

What had Giles said about keeping Dawn, Cass, and Daniel safe?

The Slayer's limping walk turned into a run. She almost sprinted back in the direction she came from, leaving droplets of blood lining the street. The Magic Box was blocks away, but she didn't care now that cold air lined her lungs and rasped her breath. The day was chilled, but the adrenaline coursing through her veins made her warm sweater superfluous. She would have taken the time to tear it off and run in the thin shirt underneath, but she had no time.

They rounded the corner together, Vampire and Slayer, he coming from the left, her coming from the right. Their eyes met once in stricken realisation, just as a scream split the air and shattered glass erupted from the Magic Box.

"Dawn!" they cried simultaneously, and they ran together, closer, twin blades reaching their harmony together once more. They surged past concrete and over shattered glass, just in time to catch a glimpse of the snake as it barrelled past them.

The two warriors didn't hesitate. There was only time for a quick glance in the Magic Box, to see Dawn's face pale but safe amidst fallen shelves, the Scoobies all unharmed around her and Cassandra and Daniel fallen but unhurt by her side. And then they changed direction, a quick twist of the ankle and a propelling by the foot, and raced after the snake-thing with Giles' car banging in pursuit.

8 8 8

There was an understandable silence after the demon had left, Buffy, Spike and Giles hot on its trail. The Scoobies' hands twitched away from weapons and spellcasting stances to fall at their sides. Cassandra and Daniel picked themselves up, groaning quietly, and then stared in sadness at their friend still hunched at their feet.

"Why was the snake-thing afraid of Dawnie?" Willow's timid voice broke the air.

There was a beat, and then things pretended to go back to normal. "I don't know," Anya said frankly as her eyes surveyed the damage. "But with Giles, Buffy and Spike all after it, it doesn't have a chance. So maybe we should take this opportunity to make sure the customersdon't step on broken glass tomorrow and sue us for injuries."

"Hear, hear," Xander said tiredly, "I'm liking the plan of having something to do…" and then one by one the adults began the clean up. Willow and Tara began to sweep, their dresses brushing against the floor marked by translucent glass. Xander began patching up the hole, his hard-lined hands falling back into something he knew. And Anya attacked the phonebook, feverishly scanning the unfamiliar tome for someone to replace the window.

Behind the fallen bookcase, Daniel and Cassandra shared a look and dragged the still-stunned Dawn into the training room, pleading shock and the need for a glass of water. Their excuse wasn't even questioned, and they collapsed amongst the landing mats, frightened bodies seeking out security.

They lay there for a while, gathering strength and warmth and wits once more, until Daniel pushed himself up onto her elbow and tugged at Dawn's shoulder.

"Are you all right?"

"No," Dawn's hands curled into fists under her stomach. "No, I'm not all right."

Cassandra pulled herself to a sitting position, crossing her legs and using her new-found elevation to stare worriedly down at her friend. "It's… it's got to be hard…

"Hard?!" Dawn spat out, suddenly animating and leaping to her feet. "You think it's hard? Three days ago, hard was figuring out maths! Now, it's…"

Like a wave, she subsided, and then rose again like a tsunami.

"Hard? It's more than hard, it's impossible! I can't deal with this, I just can't deal with this! All the… riddles and the weirdness and my sister and you two aren't helping! I don't even know what I am anymore!" the brown-haired Summers' voice reached a feverish pitch, and Daniel winced, wondering how on earth the Scoobies outside couldn't hear them. "I tried to find out, but it's so damn confusing! They talk about memories and green energy and not being real, but how do I know?! It doesn't make sense, I don't know, I don't know who or what I am, and I…"

Her voice faded suddenly, as a soft yet iron grip closed over her wrist and her dark-eyed friend pulled her forwards to face her.

"Dawn," Cassandra whispered. "You're the Key."

8 8 8

"She's the Key."

Giles stared. His Slayer looked a little hollow; the normally burnished brightness of her cheeks was faded and her arms were wrapped around herself to ward off the wind. Her chest rose and fell deeply, but other than that and her ruined sweater that had caught in the serpent's fangs, there was no other sign that she'd just sprinted over a mile and killed a demon with her bare hands.

Well, there had been Spike. The Watcher spared a glance in the vampire's direction as he knelt over the demon, and then turned back.

"The Key?" he asked in a whisper, putting his hand on her shoulder to reassure himself she was still there. "Dawn is the Key, the one that Glory is looking for?"

"Yeah," Spike said abruptly, striding down the grassy hill from where he'd been examining the corpse of the snake-demon-thing. "We found out straight from the mouth of a monk Glory had been torturin'. Seems the Key was originally pure green energy, used for openin' dimensions and the like… but then these monks 'made it flesh' and sent it to us. Complete with fake memories and the like."

"And you didn't think to tell me this sooner?" Giles queried in disbelief. "Your last meeting with Glory was three days ago."

"You were busy with the Council of Wankers," Spike's mouth twisted around the word, and then a harsh laugh erupted from his throat. "Oh, and there we can draw a soddin' parallel between them and these 'brethren'."

He spat on the ground. "Pillocks. They have no idea what they were messin' with…"

Giles stiffened, first at Spike's hijacking of Buffy's part, second at his response. As he pushed his glasses further up his forehead with a rough finger, he missed the wordlessly grateful look that Buffy had directed towards the platinum-blonde vampire at his intervention.

"Are you suggesting that you'd rather they hadn't sent Dawn to us?"

Spike didn't flinch under the Ripper-esque glare. Borrowed blood still tingled in his veins from the kill, from the effort in holding the snake-thing down as Buffy had vented her fear and rage. "No, I'm suggestin' that they were wankers to mess with a teenage girl's mind. If they created Dawn, they should have… given her some self-awareness of what she was at least. As it is, that girl's walkin' into a bombshell sometime ahead when she finds out. And that's just not bloody fair."

Giles' mouth opened, shut, and then his brow furrowed. "That… is a point I had not thought about," the Watcher conceded. "Something of this…delicate nature will be very difficult for Dawn to take."

"Oh, you think?" sarcasm dripped from the vampire's voice. "Come on, Rupes. Her entire life, up until the last few months, has been a lie. 'S been fabricated by a bunch of mindless idiots. I wouldn't take to that kind of knowledge kindly, let alone a girl who hasn't got her grip on life yet."

"Well what do you suggest we do then?" Giles demanded. "Since you're such an expert on adolescent psychology, Spike, perhaps you should come up with a solution to this mess instead of blathering on about how bad it is!"

"I have a solution."

The two Englishmen turned towards Buffy, her eyes cold and her jaw set straight even as she shivered lightly, the tatters of her ruined sweater curling at her elbows.

"We don't tell her."

Spike's eyes narrowed slightly. "Are you sure, Slayer? Things could get messy if she finds out by herself."

Buffy's face shadowed with pain. "I know. But for now… we can't tell her. Not until we find out more about what… she is, and what exactly Glory wants to do."

Giles wasn't sure if he was more surprised by the fact that Spike opened his mouth, shut it, and then nodded curtly in agreement, or by the fact that when the vampire passed the Slayer, he draped his prized leather coat over her… and she did not protest.

8 8 8

"Am I evil?"

Dawn's eyes were still wide and glassy, but now her shaking had calmed and she sat on the training mats, her arms hooked around her knees. Muted light shifted through the window, covered by the clouds, and cast everything in an oddly greyish light. Cassandra considered briefly against letting it stand, and then slowly turned her weight until her arm was settled around her friend's shoulder.

"No, you're not," she said gently, and with as much conviction as she could muster. "You're… energy. I… don't know much, but from what I understand, you're this special energy that can control the dimensions, opening and closing them. It runs in your blood."

A tiny, frail smile crossed Dawn's cold cheeks. "I have superpowers, then?"

Daniel chuckled quietly as he scooted closer to them, a strange pain descending across his eyes as he watched. These two girls, both shorter than him by at least half a head… they seemed so small huddled together, and he wished with all of his heart he could do something. But they were the Key, and a Seeress. He was just… Daniel.

"You've always had superpowers, Dawn," he teased gently. "No-one, but no-one, has the capacity to annoy me as much as you do."

It elicited a laugh, and before he could do anything, he was pulled unceremoniously into the impromptu hug. He yelped in feigned protest as they giggled, but then relaxed and embraced them back. His friends. Damn if the world wasn't getting strange, or stranger, or far stranger since the days the world had existed minus demons and magic. But amidst rituals and evil knives and his best friends evolving beyond his reach… they were still his friends, and he'd do anything for them.

When the laughter quieted down, though, they shifted positions once again into a triangle, so each could see the others' faces. "So, if I've got this energy in my blood, how do I control the dimensions?"

Cassandra shook her head ruefully. "Sorry, I don't think I can help you there. But maybe, since you've been the Key for millions of… heck, I don't actually know how long you've existed… well, perhaps if you investigate it yourself, you might figure it out."

She offered her friend a hopeful smile, but then it suddenly turned downwards in worry at the expression on Dawn's face. "What? What is it?"

"Something I 'investigated'," she said flatly. "With the books you guys sto… 'borrowed' from Giles."

Cassandra and Daniel shared a single, awful look.

"The knife?" he whispered.

"Yeah," Dawn turned away and gazed out into the cloud-covered sky. "I'm mentioned."

Cassandra pressed a single hand to her mouth, to block out the words threatening to spiral forth. So it wasn't just Glory they had to worry about now, with Dawn. There was another player on the board, and they didn't even know who it was.

She shared a look with Daniel shared a look again, and this time horror ripped into their gazes.