Title: Emerald Spark (17/?)

Author: Cyclone

Feedback: Please be gentle.

Distribution: Gimme credit and a link.

Rating: Just a little bad language.

Spoilers: Anything and everything.

Disclaimer: The characters depicted herein belong to other people. I'm just borrowing them for a while.

Summary: After Halloween, everything changes. Sequel to Blackest Night. Part one of Emerald Flame.

Author's Note: Meanwhile, back on Earth...

Willow stared. Blinked. Stared again. Scrubbed her eyes. Stared again.

Nope, she was still seeing it. Cordelia Chase was reading a comic book. And... yes, that was a faint sobbing she was hearing. What in the world was going on?

"Cordelia?" the redhead called tentatively, making her presence known from the end of the aisle she was standing at. Cordy had curled up in the middle of the stacks in the library to... read comic books, apparently.

Cordy looked up, a haunted look on her tear-streaked face. "A city," she said, her voice raw. "A whole city. Is that what's going to happen to Sunnydale?"

Willow was a smart girl, and despite her hatred of the all-too-perfect Queen C-for-Cruel, she couldn't help but put together what had to be happening. Xander was Green Lantern. Cordy had obviously found out -- probably from that mess during Career Week -- and was now... what? Reading comic books to find out more?

"I'm... um... pretty sure it won't," Willow said awkwardly. "If Sunnydale goes, so does the whole world."

"Oh, that makes me feel a whole lot better!" Cordy snapped. Willow almost sighed in relief. She had no idea how to deal with the crying mess that looked like Cordelia; this, she could deal with.

Well, she dealt with it mostly by shrinking back, but at least it was a familiar role.

"Stop that," Cordy scowled. "Stop whimpering. Why do you think I tormented you so much? If you'd just grown a spine, I'd have left you alone." Her face softened, and she looked introspective, "Where is he, anyway?"

"You mean Xander?"

Cordy nodded.

Willow bit her lip. "Well," she said, "I guess there's no harm in telling you. He's off-planet, looking for some doomsday weapon he had a vision about."

"He gets visions too?" Cordy squawked, then looked down introspectively.

"Well," Willow replied, "it seemed to be a one-time thing, from what he said. Why did you want to know where he was?"

"He called me a hero," Cordy said quietly. "And I don't know why. I mean, I don't get it. How can he call me... that... when he's a Green Lantern? With visions! And Buffy's the Slayer. Giles has all that Watcher training." She looked up, "How can you stand it? Being the normal one?"

Willow bit her lip, "I... actually have an idea on that." She pulled out a piece of paper and jotted down a few titles. "Here. If you're going to be checking out comics, try these."

Cordy took the slip of paper and frowned. The titles were nothing like what she had been reading up until now, which was mostly Green Lantern, along with some Superman to figure out what was going on with that scary Parallax thing.

Grinning gleefully, Faith skipped toward the front door of her... home. She stopped her in her tracks at the bottom of the steps leading up to the porch, her face sobering up at the thought. The house she shared with the Baxters really was home to her, more than any other place she had ever lived in.

She shook off the introspective train of thought and queried, "Ring, current charge?"

"Ninety-one point four three percent," it chirped in reply.

She grinned again. She had done quite a bit of good, and she had barely dented its charge. She was really learning to pull the maximum efficiency out of her ring's charge, and she was anxious to see what she could do with a power battery of her own.

"What have you been up to?" came a suspicious voice.

Faith looked up and saw Tara leaning on the wall next to the door. "Um... not a lot," she shrugged. "Just... taking care of a little trash in L.A."

"Didn't Xander tell you to lie low and save the ring for emergencies?" Tara asked, crossing her arms.

"I barely used nine percent!" Faith protested. "And it's not like I'm advertising myself to the world. No one saw me. Well, no one that anyone would believe. Besides, I'm a space cop. I should be fighting crime. It's part of the job description."

Tara wasn't entirely convinced, but it was clear that arguing further on the matter would be a futile gesture, so she rolled her eyes, shrugged, and went back into the house.

"Hey, John," Michael Harrigan greeted his partner as the other man sat down with a file folder. "What've you got there?"

"Take a guess," John Spartan replied, tossing it on the desk and leaning back.

Mike picked up the file, and his eyebrows shot up, "Another one?"

"Yup," John nodded. "Three of them. Wrapped up like a Christmas present in about a hundred feet of chain-link fence, right next about fifty grand worth of coke. Whoever it is, they've been hitting Phoenix hard."

"Phoenix is the only one left to hit," Mike snorted. He tried not to think about what had happened last year with that... whatever. A lot of people died, including most of L.A.'s top crime bosses, and soon after, Phoenix had moved in and claimed it all for himself. "Besides, there was that one serial killer."

"Who claimed he was stopped by a glowing green devil," John pointed out, rolling his eyes. He paused. "Or was it a witch?"

"Witch," Mike replied. "The 'green devil' was that New Age-y Voodoo Lite priest we found tied to that lamppost on Fourth Street, the one we booked for dealing speed."

"I don't want to ask the obvious, but... you think they're all connected?"

"Maybe," Mike said. He hoped not. The last time weird shit had been connected, it had been an alien big game hunter on safari.

"I hope so," John muttered.

Mike's eyebrows shot up, "You do?"

"Yeah," John nodded, "otherwise, something else is going on that's causing the humps in the area to all go insane and see glowing green things. Which probably means a new drug, one the docs can't trace."

"A drug that makes people tie themselves ten feet in the air to lampposts with six feet of steel rebar?" Mike snorted again. He sighed and slumped back into his chair, "I'm getting too old for this shit."

"Can you hear me now?" Buffy tapped the earbug.

"For the last time," came Willow's exasperated voice over the earbug, "yes, I can hear you fine. This is proven technology, Buffy. It works. Stop fussing over it before you break it."

"Well, sor-reeee!" Buffy snapped. "I'm just not used to this whole commando-secret-agent thing." After a moment, she added, "And why the fishnets, again?" She had to admit, her legs looked stunning in them, but it wasn't exactly her first choice for Slaying wear.

"I told you," Willow said. "It's important. Just trust me. Cordelia's waiting for you at Restfield's east gate."

It had been four days since Willow had found Cordelia reading comics and had her idea. The day after that, she'd managed to wheedle some of the spare computer hardware Xander had acquired for Miss Calendar. Tonight, however, was the first time everything would be coming together.

Not that she had actually bothered to tell Buffy what she had planned, but it was just a minor detail she had overlooked.

"Yeah, about that," Buffy said as she made her way to Restfield. "I don't even get why she's here at all? I thought she didn't want anything to do with the whole Slay-age thing?"

"I didn't," Cordy's voice came out of the shadows even as Sunnydale High's Queen C stepped out from said shadows. "But I've had a recent change of heart."

Buffy stared, "What are you wearing?"

"You're one to talk, Miss Fishnets," Cordy snorted, adjusting the purple mask. "You hang with those losers. Surely, you can figure it out.

Buffy looked down at her outfit, looked back up at Cordy, and then, suddenly, everything clicked.

"Oh, hell, no."

Willow's voice chirped over the earbug again, "I've got movement. Polgara demon near the Mansfeld crypt, heading south."

"You and I are going to have a long talk about this, Willow," Buffy scowled.

"Yak, yak, yak, the target's getting away, Buffy."

"A very long talk," she muttered as she and Cordy moved to intercept.

Faith stormed the warehouse confidently. She still had a good sixty percent charge in her ring, and she figured fifty percent would be enough to handle most emergencies back on the hellmouth.

"Well, well, well," a voice echoed mockingly from the far end of the empty room. Sitting at a desk, his feet propped up, was a black man with a bleached blond flat top hair cut: Simon Phoenix. He put his feet down and stood up.

"You're going down, Phoenix."

"Green Lantern! Ooh!" he gave her a mock shiver. "I'm scared. What are you gonna do? Arrest me? You've got nothing to pin on me. Kill me? Are you really ready for that, Girl Scout?"

"Wanna try me?" Faith sneered.

"Hey, I know!" Phoenix said, grinning like a madman. "Let's talk movies. What kinda movies you like, huh?"

Faith blinked at the question, watching in bewilderment as he sauntered over to a filing cabinet.

"Action? Romance? Comedy? How about spy movies?" Phoenix continued on. "You a Bond fan? 'Cause I lovvve me a good Bond film. My favorite, though, has got to be..."

He turned, a pistol in his hand, and she reinforced her shields.

BLAM!

"...The Man With the Golden Gun."

Faith's eyes widened as the bullet pierced her energy shield... and then her gut.

"Or golden bullets, in this case," Phoenix amended. "What do you think I am? Stupid? Way you've been hittin' my people, I knew you'd come knocking on my door sooner or later, greenhorn." He glanced over at one of his lieutenants, "Jarod, clean up this mess."

Faith didn't remember falling, but she found herself looking up at the ceiling as pain and darkness closed in on her. Suddenly, a dark-haired man with a darker grin on his face was leaning over her.

"Don't worry, boss," he said. "I'll take care of her."

"So, what will you do now, Sentinel?" Cortana asked.

Xander had spent a week going through the data Cortana had on the state of galactic affairs, not to mention perfecting the process of replicating his power battery. He couldn't stay too long, though; he'd only brought a month's worth of military surplus MREs... and was beginning to doubt he'd make it that far on them, given the taste.

The entire planet of Dakara proved to be an artificial space station created by the Alterans, with the galactic Genesis device from his vision concealed near the surface. Thankfully, it didn't look like anyone was even looking for it, so that was one concern he could put off until later. Dakara had also been the central communication and transport hub for the Stellar Sentinels... and their headquarters. He knew his plans for it already, but he'd never really been asked to put them into words until now.

"For too long, the galaxy's been ruled by megalomaniacs with delusions of godhood," he finally declared. "I'm going to change that, one ring at a time." He gestured around them, "This place, Dakara, they've perverted it from a bastion of justice into the most holy planet in their religion of self-worship. When the time is right, we'll reclaim it for its true purpose, in the name of freedom and justice in the galaxy, and Dakara shall become the new Oa, headquarters of the Green Lantern Corps."

"All right," she nodded. "So, where do we start, Reclaimer?"

Xander blinked, "'We'?"

"Yes. We," Cortana repeated patiently. "Place your ring into the interface slot, and I'll download myself to it. My subroutines can handle things here." She paused, waiting for a response as the interface slot blinked at him. She frowned, "Are you listening to me?"

"Faith's in trouble," he said, clearly not. He had been distracted by the alert he'd tied in to Faith's power ring before he left Earth. "Gotta go." He activated the installation's teleportation grid...

"Hey, wait!"

...and vanished.

Cortana huffed indignantly and put her holographic hands on her holographic hips.

"Well, that was just rude."

Author's Postscript:

As I said, things are starting to move onto a larger scale.