By Sword and by Claw
Chapter Four

Buffy looked at the glowing blue ghost thing. 'No I don't. You see I don't want to go just yet. My body's still alive, so when I wake up from this dream…'

'You will not wake up.' They told her. 'And the only thing keeping your body alive are these machines.' He waved a bony hand at the heart monitor.

'I'm the Slayer. I'll heal.'

'In time to stop the Mayor's coming accession?' They shot back. 'No dear one, you are wrong. Even a Slayer can only survive so much. Death awaits you.'

'Well you can just go on waiting can't you.'

The ghost shook his withered head. 'I am not the avatar of death Slayer. Far from it. My name is Jaga and I am here to help.'

That got Buffy's attention. 'Alright, assuming that you're not trying to trick me.'

'A wise course.'

'How can you help me? Aren't you already dead?' She kept the bed between them, but did take a step closer.

Jaga nodded. 'Oh yes and I have been for some time now. However, there is one object that can help you, that can restore you to life and give you the power to destroy the Mayor and your enemies wherever they may be.'

Without knowing how Buffy knew exactly what he meant. 'The Sword. You're talking about the Sword I found.'

He nodded. 'The Sword of Omens and with it the Eye of Thundera, but before you can claim them must know of their history and that of my people.' Jaga told her as he took the hem of his cloak in one hand and threw it over his shoulder. As he did the whole wall behind him shuddered and vanished. 'Before the dawn of your species this world was savage, dark and brutal. Only the iron will of my people, the ThunderCats, tamed it. With righteous claw and just heart did we rule.' Buffy stepped around her own, comatose, body and looked through the hole he'd made.

She didn't have much choice, she'd tried everything to get back into her body and as much as she didn't like to admit it an arrow in the chest was pretty much fatal. If this guy could help her she needed it and if he was tricking her… Well she was already dead, that didn't leave that much to lose.

On the other side of the wall was a city set in a valley, with rivers running through the streets and a giant marble statue of a cat looming over it all. 'Wow.' Buffy gasped.

'Thundera. Home of the ThunderCats.' Jaga announced in a deep rumbling voice. 'Ruled by the Lions, who guided our people through the darkest of times.' He raised his staff and brought it down on the floor, hard. Instead of hitting the linoleum all hospital floors were made of it rang off stone.

In the blink of an eye Buffy was inside what she guessed was a throne room. It was bathed in yellow light. At the front of the room was a set of high backed chairs and the huge domed roof was held up with twisted tree like columns. 'Okay, I'll say one thing you demons really know how to build them.'

'We are not demons Slayer. We are cats.'

'Yeah, right.' Buffy smirked. 'Really?'

Jaga looked at her for a moment, it was the same look she got from Giles when she'd done something he thought was childish or stupid. 'Follow.'

'Follow the ghost of a talking man cat thing through an illusion of a city, while being on my deathbed. Yeah, my life is so normal.' Still, with nothing better to do, she followed him to the window and then outside onto the balcony. She was inside the marble statue, just under the head. 'Where are the dinosaurs?'

'The what?' the old cat asked.

'You know, giant lizards. Jurassic Park?' As Buffy spoke the sun set and it quickly became night.

Jaga sighed. 'They died before our coming, just as we did before yours.'

Buffy frowned. 'Right, makes sense. Sort of. So what was it, another meteor? What wiped you lot out I mean.'

'No, the downfall of my people came from evil.'

'Evil?' Buffy asked just in time to see a missile fly out of the darkness and hit one of the buildings below. 'What in the…?' she asked as more missiles came. Wave after wave of them, destroying building after building.

Even from high above she could hear the screams of people… no cat people in the streets. Desperate, panicking, terrified. 'We have to something!' she shouted as buildings collapsed and the cat people below were buried alive.

Buffy watched helplessly as dozens of them fled into a shelter, only for it to be hit by a missile. Killing everyone instantly. 'What you see now is of the distant past. Whatever can be done has.' Jaga told her sadly.

Dr Clark looked at the hospital administrator. 'I'm sorry but what?'

'The hospital cannot afford to waste resources on what you yourself consider a hundred to one long shot.' Dr Johnson explained. 'Look Dr Clark, Ian, what honestly do you think the chances are she'll recover?'

'I don't know, but we owe it to her to try. We're doctors for Christ's sake! Not accountants!' he threw the clipboard onto the desk. 'At least I am.'

'Ian!' The bureaucrat snapped. 'I am a doctor, but I have to balance the well-being of one girl over this hospital and all the other patients.' he glance at the file. 'Surgery on Miss Summers would be, in my medical opinion, a waste of resources. For all we know the damage done to her brain through lack of oxygen is permanent. She can't breath without the aid of the machines, she is medically dead.'

Ian still couldn't believe what he was hearing. 'You can't make that assessment, you haven't even been down there to see her!'

'I can, I trust your report.'

Ian had him now. 'The report that suggests immediate medical procedure?'

'I agree with your diagnosis, not your suggested treatment.' Johnson said calmly, as if they weren't talking about letting a young woman die pointlessly.

Trying to clam himself Ian took a deep breath. 'Listen, you and I both know this town isn't what either of us would call normal. The amount of animal attacks I've had to treat kind of give the game away. Now I get it, I really do, people aren't ready for the truth. You could count me among them, but I don't live with my head in the sand. We've both seen the reports and we both know just what this girl can and has done. She'd done more good for this hell hole of a town than all the doctors in this hospital put together. This is our chance to pay her back and I, for one, am going to fight for her life at least as hard as she is right now.'

The Administrator nodded with every point. When Ian had finished he quite deliberately picked up the file and looked again. Holding it between them. For a moment Ian worried that he was being dismissed before the file came down again. 'Ian, we aren't friends. That much is certain, but I have always respected your medical opinion. So when I tell you this it isn't as your boss, or as a fellow doctor but as a person. Man to man. I understand what you're saying and you're right. Sunnydale isn't your normal town. What you have to realise is that there are two sides to every argument. If you don't think this through you might just find yourself backing the wrong horse.'

Ian blinked. 'What are you saying?'

'Come now. You're an intelligent man, a Doctor even. Even in a town as blinkered as this one a young girl is shot down in the middle of the high street, with a bow of all things, and there's no investigation?' Ian felt as if the world was collapsing in on itself. 'Now I can protect you Ian, make sure the right horse knows you were behind them the whole time.'

'Are you trying to tell me you're letting this girl die because someone has told you to?' He backed away.

'Yes Ian that is exactly what I'm trying to say.' Johnson told him point blank. 'And if you even breath a word of it to anyone I will personally feed you to a demon from the deepest pit I can find. Now go back down there, tell her family that we will do our best, but we're having trouble contacting the specialist. With any luck the situation will have corrected itself long before we eventually get them on the phone.' Ian had to hold on to the wall to steady himself. In one fell swoop he'd just been made accomplice to a murder. He needed to sit down, needed to throw up… 'Oh and on your way out send in Nurse Julie. I have an errand for her to run.'

The smoke from the now destroyed city cleared and Jaga led Buffy back inside the Hall. The bombardment had turned the once golden room into a shattered shell. Dull grey and cracked walls, the floor covered in rubble. sitting on the throne was something evil. It looked like someone had mummified a demon. They looked like a withered blue husk wrapped in rotting bandages that had then been covered in a shredded and tattered red cloak.

'This guy? This is the big bad evil that destroyed your people.' Buffy asked. Sure he was evil looking but she could snap him in half without much trouble. Hell, Willow could win in a fist fight with them.

'Mumm-Ra is a sorcerer of great power and cunning. Underestimating him is often the ultimate mistake.' Jaga warned her. 'This may be his true form, however, he has another.' With that the mummy clawed its way of from the chair.

'Ancient spirits of evil, transform this decayed form into Mumm-Ra, the Ever Living!' Dark purple and black energy raged around the demon before covering him in red lightning. The cloak was ripped off in the storm and he pulled himself straight. What stood in it's place was a nightmare. Rippling muscle, huge leather wings and face that could shatter glass.

Jaga growled 'Mumm-Ra was the darkest of evils. His attack destroyed Thundera and spelt the doom of our civilisation, but there were survivors. A few. Our last and perhaps greatest King, Lion-O, the Just and Farsighted, led them and an alliance of beasts against the evil. Mumm-Ra's minions fell, or joined the forces against him. After long and terrible struggles only he remained.

'Yet, even on the eve of his defeat, Mumm-Ra was defiant.' As Jaga went on the room around them changed. The giant muscular monster was now in the middle of some sort of temple and they were surrounded by four stone statues, each one looking down at them. In the monsters hands was now a light blue gemstone. 'Using one of the four stones of power Mumm-Ra, in a last desperate attempt to claim power and destroy the ThunderCats, summoned an army even he could not control.' Around the monster pictures began appearing like floating TV screens of places all over the world. Dark lightning struck the ground, exploding into a great hole. From the holes something began clawing it's way up. Some of the things were green, others brown. some fat, some made of nothing but tentacles. Whatever they were they all had one thing in common.

'Demons! He summoned an army of demons!' Buffy shouted.

'Yes dear one.' Jaga waved his staff and the world changed again. As Buffy was looking at the open pit on the screen they seemed to be sucked into it. Around them all too familiar walls began to appear, a piece at a time. After only a minute the two of them were in the High school Library. 'It was Mumm-Ra that allowed the Old Ones a place in this world. Opening portals, great rents in existence for them to infect the universe.'

Buffy looked around, it was the library, just like she had left it. 'So big bad blue not only blew up your home and summoned an army of demons but you're also saying he made the Hellmouths.'

'Yes.'

'Great, I sure hope he's dead.' Buffy muttered, forgetting that Cats had good hearing.

'No dear one.' Jaga shook his head. 'Mumm-Ra is beyond death. He was, however, defeated. Lion-O used the Sword of Omens and the four Stones of Power to strip him of most of his powers and entomb him in a nether-realm from which there is no escape. Still the damage was done. Demons roamed the world and the surviving beasts fell into barbarism.'

'So why tell me all of this?' Buffy asked. 'If there's nothing I can do about any of this how does this help me, or you?'

'The mayor's coming ascension. It will return true demons to your world and usher in a new darkness. It is not a coincidence that you found the Sword, nor that you found it now. This is your choice, dear one; take up the Sword of Omens and defend humanity, or let it rest and rest yourself.'

'Some choice.' She sighed. For a long moment she stared at the Sword. 'What are we waiting for, let's do this.'

'Be sure.' Jaga announced. 'This is not a choice you can take back. Once made it can not be unmade.'

'What about my friends, my family? Wilkins will kill them unless I stop him.' Buffy snapped. 'Who else will he kill, how many has he already killed for this?'

'Is there no one else. Your friends? Your family?'

'They need me.' She said. 'I thought you wanted me to do this?'

'I do, but I need you to be sure.'

Buffy put her hands on her hips. 'Well I am, so how do we do get on with this?'

Xander watched as the doctor sat down next to Giles and Joyce. 'I'm sorry. We… we've had some… Difficulty contacting the experts needed.' He was looking almost green and focused on their feet. 'We're…' he stopped again before suddenly sitting up. 'I promise you, I will do everything in my power to save your daughters life.'

Xander frowned. He knew something was wrong, but he didn't know what. As the doctor stood up a nurse walked up. 'You wanted to see me Dr Clark?' they asked.

'What?' He gaped.

'Nurse Julie found me.' They said simply. 'Said you wanted to see me?'

The doctor stumbled backwards. 'Julie… No.' He whispered.

As soon as he spoke an alarm sounded. 'Code Blue, Dr Clark to Room Five. Dr Clark, Room Five.' Xander realised that was Buffy's room and before he knew it he was running.

As fast as he and the other Scoobies were the Doctor was somehow faster. Throwing himself around corners. Xander was just in time to see another nurse, outside Buffy's room, try and say something before he knocked her to the floor.

Inside the Doctor almost fell over himself to get to the machine next to Buffy's bed. 'No. No!'

'What, what happened.' Xander asked gasping for air.

'Her heart's stopped. She's dead!'

End Chapter Four