Vanguard Slayer

by Joshua The Evil Guy

Buffy encounters an enemy that she cannot defeat alone. After this demon kills Angel in front of her, can she possibly survive? Only with the teachings of a young warrior sent by the Watcher's Council to train her and her friends does she have a chance!

4. Execute!

Vanguard Slayer

Author:Joshua

Summary:Buffy and her friends now know their Animal Spirit Guides and are one major step closer to attaining true Chi-Armor. What lies in store for them next? What additional training does Jason Everheart have for them to do? And who, or rather what will the Omega Order send to "investigate" the disappearance of the Judge?

Timeline:Up to "Bad Eggs" and beyond, but before "Surprise", which turns out very differently.

Disclaimer:Joss Whedon created and owns the Buffyverse, which is company owned by Mutant/Enemy Productions. "Chi-Armor" is, as far as I care, a semi-original concept, derived from multiple factual and fictional references, but the term and use itself is original to this story.

AN:Chi-Armor is NOT pronounced how it looks to the American, British, or even Japanese eyes, no offense. It is pronounced with the Greek approximation. Χ, or "ck-eye" is the way to pronounce it when you see the word put as Chi-Armor. If seen as chi or ki, then it is pronounced how it is spelled.

Story:"Execute!"

Buffy Summers was the Vampire Slayer. Jason Everheart is a Chi-Armor warrior. Jason is training Buffy to use Chi-Armor herself, along with each of her friends. And it's the best damn thing that ever happened to any of them.

"Woo-HOO!" Willow screamed as she began to fall to the ground after her thirty-foot jump. She landed perfectly, like it had been three inches instead. Around her, the others were likewise practicing with their pseudo-Chi-Armors.

At first glance you'd just see four or five teenagers acting like they were superheroes, and then doing things that were straight out of comics and cartoons. At a second glance, you could just barely see that there was something more to it, that there was something unique about these kids that made it actually possible for them to do the things they were doing. And if you kept looking, you'd be able to see that each person was surrounded by a nearly-visible-but-not-quite field, or aura. The way it surrounded them, looking like heat-waves off a road on a hot summer day, you'd almost begin to think that it looked like the kids wore armor out of raw energy or heat.

You wouldn't be that far off.

Xander, Cordelia and Willow were slowly discovering what Buffy had the night she'd faced off against the Judge and his minions. The pure benefits, the physical benefits, of the Chi-Armor training Jason had given them.

Xander, the aura of solid energy surrounding his form not-quite visible, was leaping as high as he could, but at the same time jumping forward more than twenty meters at a time. He kinda felt like Superman. On a whim, the next time he landed, instead of putting his feet down first, he angled his fist to hit the ground in a downwards punch. When he landed, his fist went into the cement with almost explosive force, cracks running away from where he hit and a few chunks of the ground flying up around him as well.

Cordelia was sparring with Willow, both had the same aura though it wasn't quite as solid or visible as those around Buffy and Xander, yet they were fighting like they were both Slayers given the strength and speed of their moves. They were using pretty straightforward techniques, but the potential of their skill was equally obvious as they adapted to their opponent's strikes, defense, and Cordelia especially showed some very impressive skills.

Buffy was pushing her energy with every single movement she made, converting every iota of her life force to solid energy as soon and as often as she could figure out how to. It was done more through feeling it out than actual thought, but she was already pushing 50%, and Xander wasn't far behind her.

Jason himself noticed just how much better they all were doing after they'd contacted their Animal Spirit Guides. Leaps and bounds didn't begin to cover the speed of their progress in using solid energy and how close they were getting to true Chi-Armor.

When he first came to Sunnydale, it was with more than a bit of reluctance. He knew he wasn't exactly being punished, far from it as the deal between his organization and the Watchers Council was mutually beneficial and if he did his job right then the Watchers had nothing to complain about and that was better than having them try to stick their upturned noses where they didn't belong.

Who knew he'd his proverbial gold though, when he discovered that not only the Slayer but three of her friends also had the potential for summoning Chi-Armor?

Buffy paused in her training for just a moment to look around at her friends as they almost literally bounced around like rubber balls, each surrounded by a barely-visible air distortion. She smiled in a mix of relief, happiness, and dread. She was now certain that those closest to her could not protect themselves just as well, if not soon better than she could them. Yet at the same time, it was becoming increasingly clear that they were forever drawn into her world of demons and terror filled nights. Most of all, she was just happy that she wasn't alone any more.

It hit her like a ton of bricks at that moment.

She was happy.

She hadn't been happy since... since the night Angel died...

Swallowing back tears, Buffy quickly composed herself and used her newly realized personal revelation to work herself that much closer to Chi-Armor. She felt an increase in the power to her solid-energy armor, but not very much.

That was another little surprise that each of them had noticed one by one. After communing with their Animal Spirit Guides, they could really sense how their solid-energy armors worked and reacted. They had also noticed their other senses significantly increasing, or changing in some way.

Buffy's already Slayer-enhanced senses were as sharp and clear as ever, but at the same time there was a... a grace in the way she moved and responded to the information than from the way she'd been before. With the others, the changes were much more significant.

Cordelia claimed that her vision was almost superhuman, being able to see things at twenty feet away like they were two feet away, and things at a hundred feet like they were twenty-one feet away. She also seemed to be more sensitive to motion, or rather she was more aware of it, sometimes overreacting, sometimes just noticing something that she would've subconsciously ignored before.

Xander was the most changed as, after testing it out, it was determined that he had Slayer-level senses now, able to hear things that were almost miles away, clearer vision, sharper reflexes, and night vision that could not be beat. He also claimed that his sense of smell was sharper, a lot sharper. Not dog or wolfhound sharp, but still close to superhuman levels of olfactory sense.

Willow claimed not to have noticed any significant changes... at first. The day after though, she claimed she was going deaf, when it was the opposite. Her hearing was beyond superhuman, able to hear the softest whisper of a flies legs that was on the other side of a building like it was an electric violin on max volume and her head was right next to the speakers. She was also a much better swimmer than she'd been before. By much better, they soon discovered she meant Olympic-level. The last change that they could really detect was that Willow could hold her breath for a really long time now, and take even deeper lungfuls.

Jason explained to them that these 'side-effects' were normal, to be expected even, after communing with their Animal Spirit Guides. "How do you think a normal 16-year-old boy could keep up with the Slayer, even with Chi-Armor, without a little boost from my own Animal Spirit Guide?" he'd asked them when they'd talked.

So now, here they all were, in the old quarry just outside Sunnydale city limits, right on the edge of the desert, doing some 'extra training' as Jason called it. Thanks to the high walls from the pit dug from the mining however many dozens of years ago was more than high enough to prevent anyone from seeing their superhuman feats, unless they were right on the edge of the quarry.

"Hey Buff!" Xander called as he leapt down from the high wall of the stone pit, landing easily like he'd just stepped off some high stairs. "Wanna test out my mad new skills? I'm serious here though, cause I want to be there right beside you and Jason on patrols, and that means learning to fight, right?"

Frowning, Buffy hesitated for only a second before shrugging to herself and nodding back at Xander, saying, "Sure, let's go."

With that, the both of them powered up as much as they possibly could, the distortions around their bodies becoming more intense. Then, at the right moment, they charged towards each other!

Willow and Cordelia stopped their own spar, which to be perfectly honest was little more than a game of tag, and turned to stare at their friends charging towards one another like that. Quickly, the two girls raced over to Jason's position, who was watching from a level higher than the floor of the quarry. The redhead and brunette tried to speak, but they were drawn to the violence unfolding below them.

Xander and Buffy bodily collided with one another, their fists flying into the other's face almost as an afterthought. Instead of blowing back from one another, or even actually hitting, there was an almost static discharge at the point where their solid-energy armors met, putting them only a few inches away from each other, but with no actual contact between their bodies.

Buffy was genuinely surprised, Xander was holding his own against her. Of course mystical super strength doesn't really come into play when both sides of the fight have near-equal level forcefields surrounding and supporting their bodies. Key phrase there was near-equal.

Pushing herself just that little bit extra, Buffy put her left foot forward and shoved more 'upwards' than just 'forward' while throwing a powerful punch with her other hand at the same time. Xander was caught flatfooted by this maneuver, so when the punch landed, he was sent flying up and away from the shorter blond.

"Hey!" he cried out mid-air. "Not fair! That's cheating!"

"There's no cheating in a fight, Xander!" Buffy and Jason both chastised the teen together.

"Oh yeah? Well, how about this!" Xander screamed as his 'aura' flared just before he would have crashed into the ground, and instantly he was right-side-up with his feet on the ground. Around his body, instead of a massive air-distortion, there was now a nebulous white-gray aura surrounding his body. It wasn't Chi-Armor, the best description in fact might be ghost armor.

"Was wondering when you were going to stop holding back on me, Xan," Buffy chuckled, right before settling her stance, calming her breathing, and 'pushing' as much of her energy as was possible for her at the moment, into her solid-energy armor. The distortions around her body became more intense until suddenly she had a 'ghost armor aura' too. Best guess, the both of them had pushed their power to sixty percent or thereabouts.

Rushing forward once more, the two decided to make things more interesting than just slamming into each other repeatedly, knowing the result each time. So, Buffy jumped up into the air at an amazing height and incredible speed. At the height of her arch, she clenched her fist and aimed for where Xander was going to be in just a few steps, her fall adding to the punches power.

Xander caught on what she was going to do at the last instant, given that she'd only jumped in the air about one second ago, and reacted before his brain really had time to catch up. Dodging to the side, he could only watch as Buffy landed her fist into the spot where he was only a heartbeat before. The armor-coated Slayer's fist slammed into the rocky ground and did not just break it, it cracked the stone apart and made an actual crater around the fist, while slabs of rock were uprooted and sent flying, a few in Xander's direction too.

"Whoa," Xander grunted, before dodging again. Instead of just watching and waiting for Buffy's next move though, he noticed a rather big boulder-like rock sitting not too far away. He quickly raced over to it, picked it up like it was made of cardboard, and threw it as hard as he could at the Slayer.

Buffy got up and saw the boulder flying right at her. Her eyes widened perceptibly, but she kept calm, adjusted her stance so she was fully balanced, then she took a running leap at the flying boulder, fist cocked back to strike it. Two weeks ago, she wouldn't even consider doing something like this, in fact best she might have done was to dodge it and let it pass. But things were different now. Now, she had a little something extra.

She hit the boulder dead on, her Slayer Instincts letting her see the 'sweet spot' on the rock, and thanks to her solid-energy armor, she had more than enough power to penetrate it. The boulder shattered into a million pieces, some of the shards even flying back the way the rock came from. Through the rain of stone, however, Buffy caught sight of Xander just standing there, seemingly right behind the rock he'd thrown at her. What really caught her attention was that he spun around in a roundhouse kick as fast as any she could've done, his foot slamming against the side of her head and sending her careening into the stone wall of the quarry.

Fortunately, she managed to get a hold of her senses in time and managed to adjust her flight so her feet landed against the wall, which she then bounced off of, aiming straight for Xander. He saw her coming and dodged out of the way.

Buffy landed a little roughly, skidding along the ground, then having to face Xander's renewed assault the moment she got her footing. She gave as good as she got, blocking and attacking back, but their ghost-armors stopped all physical blows from landing, and unless it was a blow with the strength to send the other flying, there was no real sign of any damage or injury. They might as well have been a couple of kids dressed up in full body snowsuits play-fighting.

Buffy, feeling the frustration from this, sought some means of cementing her victory for this fight, but her past experiences with fighting depended on being able to judge which of the fighters was actually capable of continuing. With their ghost-armor, there were no bruises, neither one of them felt any real pain, and every one of them could maintain solid-energy for upwards of an hour before feeling any strain whatsoever. It was impossible!

So, seeing that her experience and Slayer instincts weren't of much help, Buffy opened herself to any other possibilities, and one immediately presented itself.

I was waiting for you to open yourself to my advice. All you have to do is ask, and I will do all that I can.

The voice was her mother's, but Buffy immediately recognized it for what it meant. Her Animal Spirit Guide, the Lioness was speaking to her, and offering her the help and knowledge that she needed. Smiling, she gratefully accepted what was offered and applied it immediately.

Taking a deep breath, she kept her body energy going converting to solid-energy, and then focused her mind on her Chi-Armor the way Lioness showed her, thereby starting the process of converting her mental energy to solid-energy. In the first few seconds, Buffy's ghost-armor flashed and seemed to become more solid, appearing more like grayish-white transparent plastic than a mist filled armor form, which is still how Xander's looked. Apparently his Animal Spirit Guide wasn't talking, or he still wasn't listening. Whichever it was, Buffy suddenly had the advantage in the fight.

"What the . . . !" Xander yelled as Buffy ran right at him and covered the distance in the blink of an eye. Startled, he could only defend and try and retreat.

"Sorry Xan, I win!" Buffy happily announced as she got in under his guard and lashed out with an uppercut that sent him flying over the top of the quarry.

Smiling, Buffy jumped and was suddenly about ten feet above Xander, inverted with one leg cocked back. Their eyes met for one second, when Buffy winked at him, Xander knew this was going to hurt, armor or no armor.

Faster than they eye could track, Buffy kicked him in the torso and sent the dark haired teen careening back to the Earth at roughly twice the speed he would have with three times the energy, as the crater from where he'd landed could testify. He did not get back up, and Buffy easily landed on her feet beside the crater like she'd only hopped up and down once.

"Nice," Jason commented with a slight smile.

"Nice?!" Willow screamed. "Nice! They're trying to kill each other!"

"They're sparring," Jason countered. "You've seen me and Buffy do that often in the Library. Same thing, only this just looks a bit more intense because it's your two best friends... and they're using 60 to 75 percent Chi-Armor, and that makes anything you've seen look like a magician's parlor tricks. After 50 percent, you're pretty much devoting everything the body has to creating a localized solid-energy field that negates nearly all outside forces from affecting it."

"But, then that means . . ." Willow trailed off and her eyes widened as she worked it out.

"What?" Cordelia asked, confused.

"It means," Jason answered her, "that the muscles, lungs, heart, even the brain and all your nerves start working at closer and closer to their full capacity. It doesn't matter who you're talking to or where to are on this planet, every single living creature, and a lot of dead creatures too, are being affected by phenomenal and literally cosmic forces every single instant of every single second of every single day since before they even existed in the first place. The human body is an impressive feat of biology and physiology. The human brain has the most neural connectors of every living organism on the planet. The human lungs are capable of taking in enormous amounts of air and converting it to pure oxygen and filter out carbon dioxide and all manner of other gases. And then there are the muscles, the heart, and so on and so forth. With Chi-Armor, all outside forces are completely blocked and removed from affecting the body. Well . . . not all forces, but enough that there's a very noticed superhuman ability displayed by those that can use Chi-Armor."

"I'll say," said Cordelia.

Back down in the pit, Buffy was standing over a stunned Xander, who couldn't really tell what had just happened. All he knew was that he'd been sent flying then felt a great deal of force come down on his torso and more than a bit of pain when he landed in his impression of a meteorite by creating a crater at the bottom of the quarry.

"Ow," he finally had enough energy to speak.

"Need a hand?" Buffy teasingly offered.

"Not... just... yet..." he whispered, either through pain or lack of energy was hard to say.

Slowly, like watching a turtle try to roll itself off of it's back, Xander worked his way out of the crater and back onto his feet. That it took about five minutes was all anybody needed to know that the fight was pretty much over.

"You know, I think it might be easier if you drop the solid-energy armor, Xan," Buffy suggested.

"Not... done... yet..." he gasped, swaying on his feet.

"Yeah, you are," she stated, before vanishing from where she stood and reappeared behind him in the blink of an eye, and side-kicked him in the small of his back, sending him flying towards the stone walls of the quarry.

He was about ten feet from hitting when all of a sudden, all trace of his solid-energy being active vanished, the ghost-armor disappearing, and he was still flying at the same speed towards the wall of the quarry.

Buffy's eyes went wide in horror and she was moving before she was consciously aware of what was about to happen. 'Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT, SHIT, SHIT!!' she mentally berated herself, even as she now moved so fast that Xander appeared frozen in mid-air while she ran to catch him before he hit the wall, probably to die upon impact.

'Lioness! What do I do? I may not be the genius Wills is, but even I know that if I catch Xander while he's still going full speed that I'm going to replace that stone wall and he's still going to die here! Stupid!'

Now is not the time for recriminations, Buffy, the Lioness spirit warned her. For now, merely get yourself into position and prepare to skid back a few feet. I will take care of the rest. Trust me.

'OK, I do trust you. This had better work . . .' she thought back, even as she positioned herself right in front of Xander and prepared to catch him. He fell into her arms in the next heartbeat and she felt the nigh-overwhelming force that had sent him flying in the first place. Instead of stopping in her tracks, she allowed herself to skid back, her feet kicking up gravel as her own body absorbed the energy from Xander's impromptu flight.

At the same time, she felt . . . something leave her armor and it helped to further cushion Xander's prone body in her arms until finally she was holding him steady in her arms, her back just over a foot from the stone wall.

"Whew," she let out the breath she'd been holding and adjusted her hold on Xander's unconscious body for a more comfortable position.

"You know, you could have just conked him one on the back of the head," Jason commented from the 'level' above her, looking down from the edge of stone wall. Obviously, he had just been about to intervene himself, but he had also given Buffy her chance to correct her own mistake, which she had.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she grumbled. "Would you mind helping me out here? I know, Slayer and all, but this is going to be awkward when he wakes up."

Jason just chuckled as he jumped down and helped Buffy carry Xander back up to the quarry exit. Training was done for the day.

Monday

Sunnydale High

After School

"You are an absolute idiot," Cordelia berated her secret boyfriend between kisses, "you know that right? I don't know why I... mmhmm! .... put up with you!"

"Maybe... because of... this?" Xander then did that thing with his tongue.

Cordelia melted like jelly in his arms, moaning and squealing with sexual pleasure.

"Oh yeah... that..." she said breathlessly after he took a brief break.

"Yeah, that," he chuckled from his current position.

"Tell you what," she dragged him up by his collar, "you do that more often, and I'll do something that you'll never forget."

"By all means then," Xander immediately fell to his knees before her and made to do exactly what she'd asked of him with no hesitation.

"Hold on mister," she pulled him back up.

"We have to get to the Library for training with Jason. As much as I'd love to stay here and finish this... whatever this is... I don't want to fall behind the others either," she told him.

"Cordy..." Xander started to complain, when his brain caught up with his mouth before he made a very stupid mistake. "Uh... yeah, you're right. Uh, let me just check if it's clear real quick."

He moved to the door and cracked it open a bit before sticking his head out into the hallway. At the moment, there was hardly anyone in the school, even the janitors were finishing up, and thankfully there was no one in the specific hall where their little love next was situated.

"OK, coast is clear," he pulled his head back in to tell his kind-of-but-not-really-girlfriend.

"Good. Do I look OK?" she asked him, straightening her clothes a bit.

He smirked and before he could say what was on his mind, she slapped the back of his head and snapped at him, "Not like that, doofus. I mean are my clothes straight, make-up good, is my hair mussed up at all?"

He shook his head and smiled at her, "You look fine Cor. Now, let's go before we're missed."

"Yeah, let's hurry," she said with sudden urgency.

They both quickly and quietly slipped out into the hall and turned towards the Library, but stopped dead when they saw the very last person that either one of them wanted to see. Willow was standing there in the middle of the hallway, apparently having just come from the Library only moments before, but it was in those moments that she witnessed Xander and Cordelia exiting the janitor's closet, looking like they'd spent the past hour making out, despite Cordelia's efforts to minimize that appearance.

"Willow, I can explain," Xander started to say before he really thought things out.

"Doofus, that's one thing you never say to a woman!" Cordelia snapped, slapping him on the back of the head.

"You... you... you, and you...?!" the distraught redhead was stuttering, drawing the other teens attention back to her. "How-how could you... with her!!"

"Hey!" Cordelia started to protest, but something in Willow's eyes, and a voice in the back of her head, warned her that this was not the time.

"Willow, it's not what you think," Xander tried once more.

"I just saw you stepping out of the janitor's closet with Cordelia Chase, both of you looking like you've spent the last hour making out!" Willow screamed at him. "I'd say it's pretty clear that it's exactly what I think!"

"Willow, you OK?" a voice called from down the hall.

Behind Willow, Xander and Cordelia saw Buffy and Jason rush out of the Library hallway, looking worried. Obviously they had heard Willow shouting and thought that something was wrong, and so had come to check on her.

"No, I'm not," Willow's face turned downcast, whispering rather than shouting that in many ways was much worse. Worried, they all stepped closer to their friend.

"Willow, what's wrong? And where have you two been?" Buffy asked Xander and Cordelia.

"Uh..." Xander was at a loss.

"None of your business," Cordelia fell back on old instincts, also at a complete loss.

Unfortunately, that was the wrong thing to do, as the old familiar tone and even the words triggered something in the psyche of a young girl whose heart was breaking before their eyes. Willow's vivid green eyes snapped up and glared pure hatred at the tormentor of childhood. For only a moment, they flashed to a bluish sea green color before returning to their normal shade.

Jason, on the other hand, felt that whatever had just happened was not over, in fact it was just beginning. "Guys," he warned, pulling Buffy back from Willow and warning the other two to do the same, "step back for a minute. Something is... not right..."

The warning became moot as they couldn't miss the waves of Chi-Armor that began to pour out of Willow's body, but more than that after a second the waves that normally looked like heat coming off the cement on a hot summer day changed to a bluish-green-gold color that looked more like the reflection of sunlight on the oceans waves. Willow's eyes flashed with the same energy, enough that her pupils were covered by the glow and all they saw was the sea-green light blazing from her eyes.

"I... I won't forgive you for this," Willow rasped, sounding on the verge hysterics. "I'm not the same weak little nobody anymore! I will not let you trample all over my life and make me give up like before. I'm going to make you pay, YOU BITCH!! TSUNAMI!"

Willow reeled back her right fist and then slammed it into the ground at her feet. Instead of being just a small temper tantrum or demonstration of potential violence that this action normally had, the moment the Willow's fist touched the ground, a literal fountain of water poured forth. It didn't stop there, unfortunately as that was just the first spurt and within seconds enough water to flood all of the halls of the school to the ceilings poured out and all of it slammed forward in a torrential wave towards Cordelia and the unfortunate Xander.

"Oh sh—!" Xander started to curse, but he and Cordelia were swept off their feet and carried a good portion down the hallway.

The really impressive thing, however, was that Willow herself and both Buffy and Jason standing behind her were completely dry, not even getting splashed with leftover droplets. Buffy was at a complete loss of what to do, she didn't even understand what was going on, and she was too stunned to bother asking Lioness about it either.

Jason, on the other hand, could see things were quickly spiraling out of control, and before either of the girls could realize it, he moved forward and grabbed Willow by the neck and hit a few quick pressure points with sufficient force to knock out a determined Army Ranger. The water instantly stopped pouring out, though it didn't instantly vanish, proving that it wasn't some kind of illusion but the real thing, and Willow crumpled into Jason's arms, who immediately picked her up.

"Come on," he said, turning with the unconscious redhead in hand, "Grab Xander and Cordelia, I'll be in the Library. I didn't think I'd have to talk about this so soon, but I guess I have some explaining to do. Better from all of you together than having to repeat myself," he added when Buffy looked like she might argue.

"Right," she said, trying to wrap her head around what she'd just witnessed. "Uh, I'll get the others. Uh, right." She walked briskly down the wet, but quickly drying hallway, Jason just as quickly carrying Willow to the Library.

Abandoned Warehouse

Omega Order's New Local Headquarters

Just After Sunset

The Judge and almost all of his vampires had been killed weeks ago by now. Unfortunate for the world, Spike, Drusilla, and another ten or so of Omega's uniformed vampires were not there when the blue demon and his minions had met their fate. So when the Judge was killed by a young boy that could summon up magic lightning armor, the Omega minions immediately turned around and contacted their organization to inform them of this tragedy and for further instruction.

They had been told to wait, and to keep Spike and Drusilla alive, metaphorically speaking, and heal their wounds to get them at maximum strength. And so, using blood bank supplies and Willie the Snitch for blood, the Omega minions and Spike and Drusilla had been sitting around their warehouse hideout for the past three weeks. Lately, more often than not, Spike would try and strong arm his way past them so he could hunt or just plain go out and have a smoke. Every single time, Spike got his ass handed to him as the vampires used combinations of martial arts, weapons, and something they claimed to be 'Demonic Energy' to put him down until he tried again.

After the first few times, Spike stopped seeing them as minions he had to get past, but as opponents for him to burn his excess energy off of. The one time, which happened to be only the night before, that he managed to get a good enough hit on one of them to knock them to the ground, rather than race past to the outside, he just stepped back and waited for the other vampire to get back to his feet before they continued the spar. Even if the blows were powerful enough to outright kill a normal person in one hit, they were vampires and so long as their heads weren't cut off, or got any splinters in their chest cavity, then no matter how much damage was done, it was just sparring.

Seeing the sun set, Spike started to stretch out a little, looking forward to another night of good fighting with the boys here, when the one radio the Omega minions had brought with them crackled to life. All of said minions immediately sprung to full attention. Rather than a voice, however, a series of beeps, static, and computer noise came over the speakers, which all of the minions seemed to understand as though it were a voice.

"Congratulations," the chief minion said to Spike after the radio turned itself off, "You've gotten a chance that most have to wait five hundred years for. You two are now officially a part of the Omega Order. You're being sent to our training facility, tonight."

"Oh really," Spike drawled, never one that liked being told what to do, "and what about the Slayer, hm? I thought you guys were big on this whole revenge kick, and now your leaving town, taking us along with you? Did the big bad lightning boy scare you pricks away?"

"The Slayer," head lackey replied, "and the Chi-Armor user have drawn the attention of our organization. They only ever send out one demon to deal with... revenge in this case. The Executioner."

Spike blinked, then growled slightly. So much for bagging himself another Slayer.

But, then again, he'd seen what this Omega Order could do, and it might be interesting to see what else they had to offer before jumping ship, so to speak. He finally just shrugged and asked, "So, how we doin' this?"

Sunnydale High

The Library

"All right Jason," Buffy snapped the moment they were all gathered in the Library, "start talking. What is it that you're not telling us? And while we're at it, what the hell just happened out there?!"

"Short answer, or the whole truth?" Jason uncomfortably replied.

"Start with the short answer, then explain," Buffy crossed her arms, glaring at him.

"I'm sorry to interrupt," Giles pulled off his glasses and began to rigorously clean them, "but what exactly did happen just now?"

"Willow went psycho, that's what!" Cordelia helpfully explained.

They all stared at the brunette for half a second before Xander stepped in.

"Willow saw... Cordy and I in an easily misinterpreted set of circumstances, and she... reacted rather negatively," he slowly filled the adults in.

"'Negatively'?!" Cordelia near-screeched, holding her still-soaking hair, "She damn near drowned me!! And you too for that matter! Come to think of it, how did 'Little Miss Brighter Side of Sears®' flash-flood the hallways anyway?"

"Welcome to where the rest of us have been for the past five minutes, Cordy," Buffy sarcastically remarked with an equally fake smile. Snapping back around to their trainer, "Jason! Answers! Now!"

"All right, all right, sheesh!" he ran his fingers through his long wavy brown hair with a sigh.

"The short answer is quite simply that Willow is more advanced than the rest of you, for whatever reason, and when she became agitated her elemental powers surfaced," he explained.

"Excuse me!" Giles shouted.

"E-Elemental powers?" Ms. Calendar exclaimed.

"And you were going to tell us this, when?" Buffy growled.

Jason sighed again and decided to start over. "OK, here's the deal. Once you can summon Chi-Armor at will, aside from the physical side effects, which you guys are seeing with solid-energy already, being stronger, faster, and in some cases more agile, there are additional benefits of having Chi-Armor. Along with your Spirit Guide attributes, you can also manipulate or control certain elements, such as Earth, Fire, Wind, Water and even Lightning. Each individual is unique, even those with similar or the same element can have different powers."

"Some elements can have distinct advantages over others when they clash. For example, Water smothers Fire and can extinguish its effects. On the other hand Lightning is also a burning element, is Water's one and greatest weakness. It's mostly just a matter of combining academic smarts with good old fashioned common sense and warrior instinct."

"In Willow's case here," he gestured to the still unconscious redhead lying on the table, "as one would guess from her having the Dolphin as her Animal Spirit Guide, her element is Water. As I said, it works differently for everyone, but clearly one of her unique attributes is that she can manifest water out of thin air and control it. My element, if you guys hadn't already guessed, is Lightning, but I can only really display that when I'm fully powered up, 100 percent Chi-Armor."

"What about the rest of us?" Xander asked, concerned.

Jason shrugged. "No way to say for certain right now. Perhaps if you ask your Animal Spirit Guides, they could provide a clue for you. As well as the catalyst needed for achieving 100 percent Chi-Armor. In the meantime, I think it's safer for everyone if everybody does individual training today. I'll stay with Willow, try and help her to understand what happened to her today, and clearly she does not want to see the two of you right now." He added to the two dripping teens.

"I'll stay too," Buffy started to say.

"No, that's alright," Jason stalled her, "Besides, you've got homework to do and this is going to take the rest of day. You've also got patrol later on tonight then your own training and meditation, and unless you're finally ready to tell your mother the whole truth, you've also got to get home."

Buffy sighed and nodded.

"Fine," she grunted, brushing her blond locks out of her face. "If you need anything thought..."

"Mr. Giles and Ms. Calendar are right here," Jason smiled, his one visible eye twinkling.

"Remind me again why I put up with you?" she practically snarled and stormed out of the Library. Xander and Cordelia quickly followed after, most likely heading for the school showers to clean up first. Separate showers.

"Now," Giles stepped forward, "what exactly happened?"

Jason almost laughed, but settled for sighing once more.

"So, where is this... Executioner bloke," Spike grumbled.

They were all waiting outside, away from the street. It was an open area where nothing but a few broken wooden boxes and crates were stacked up against the sides of the warehouses, which surrounded the area on all sides, boxing it in. There weren't even any sewer entrances, just drainage pipes right next to the buildings, so Spike saw no reason for them to even be here waiting like this.

"Patience," chief minion said to him. "Try asking your seer girlfriend there. She should feel him coming when he arrives."

Spike growled, shifting to his game face for a moment, then reverting as he glanced to see Drusilla staring off into space. Wait, no, she was staring off in a specific direction. East, but not just the direction, her face was tilted up and her eyes were tracking something up in the sky. When his superior vampiric hearing detected the sounds of a helicopter, it all suddenly made sense.

"Bloody hell," Spike cursed as the black military helicopter came overhead and hovered itself down to rooftop level. Despite there being plenty of room for it in the open area, it did not land, just remained hovering like that until one of its side-panel hatches slid open. Four at a time, two from each side of the chopper, dropped down on cable lines and it wasn't until over a dozen of them were on the ground that Spike realized they were more of these Omega Order Vampires, but clearly under a different boss as they wore all black with the same symbol instead of brown and blue.

Finally, one last figure jumped down, without the cable line, the ground shaking with a small tremor at his impact despite looking like he'd only jumped the last step of a staircase. The moment it was on the ground, the helicopter immediately flew off like a specter in the night.

Spike cursed even louder when he saw a virtual twin of the Judge's face come walking up, except maybe where Judge had looked like a middle-aged demon, this one looked like a recently-matured demon (difference of early 40's and mid 20's). To make matters even worse though, this one was wearing some kind of weird all-black armor that uncomfortably reminded Spike of that single glimpse Spike had gotten of that white-armored arsehole that had blown up the Judge.

"You must be the Executioner," Spike drawled as the demon came up to him and Drusilla. "Judge, Executioner... I'm starting to detect a trend here."

"The Judge owed us a favor," the blue-headed, black-armored demon replied. "And he was under our protection. He was here to negotiate with the local Wolfram & Hart office in LA. His negotiations were complete, so his time eradicating your brood and hunting this... Slayer were matters of his own. But we weren't through with him yet, so it's merely a matter of pride that this Slayer, and those she works for be... educated about our Order."

Spike nodded, understanding the logic.

"I can see why he spared you two though," the Executioner continued. "The both of you have a very rare potential, the insane seer moreso, but you are not lacking in the slightest."

"Yeah, well..." Spike started to snap back, except he wasn't really sure if he was being insulted, complemented, or explained something. "Thanks?"

"Tomorrow evening I will begin my hunt for this Slayer and summarily execute her for stepping on the toes of the Omega Order. Then I will turn my attention to the true target, the Chi-Warrior. Before I leave, however, you and your... mate will be taken to our new training facility in the mountains. Stay there until they tell you that you are allowed to leave, or else you will never return. As I said, you have potential, but right now, that is all that it is. We shall see if we can turn that potential in to something useful."

"Uh, right then," Spike agreed, knowing that he had no other choice.

"But that is for tomorrow," the Executioner grinned, showing his fangs, "For now, let us prepare for our hunt. You have fought this Slayer before?"

Spike rolled his eyes in exasperation. First the Judge, now this bloke.

"Yeah, and I've been through the whole Q&A thing already. Your minions here have heard me spout off about her about a hundred times now, so they can tell you everything that I already know. Except that it seems she's been learning whatever it is that glowing-armor-bloke's can do, because her fight with the last guy, the Judge, I saw her do stuff that was damn right impossible for anyone, and she couldn't do a bit of it beforehand."

"Has she manifested?" the Executioner asked of the chief minion.

"No sir," the vampire dutifully answered. "We've estimated that at the time of her engagement with the Judge she had achieved 50 percent solid-energy conversion. Given the time frame since then, we estimate that unless she has reached catalyst, she should only be able to convert 70 to 80 percent at this time. Sir!"

"Interesting," the Executioner stroked his chin in thought.

"Also, sir," the vampire added, "It has been noted that besides the Slayer and the Chi-Warrior, there are three others that show a much higher energy rating and have been seen in the presence of both targets. It has been assumed that the Chi-Warrior is training these others in addition to the Slayer..." the vampire stopped there due to the fact that the Executioner had shot a bolt of red energy that quickly burned the undead creature to ash.

"Never assume, know!" the blue demon ordered to the remaining vampires.

Spike wisely decided to stay quiet, and Drusilla thankfully followed his example.

The Executioner seethed for several moments before calming himself and flexing his black-armored hand, sparks of red energy arcing between his fingers and the open air. "To answer the obvious, vampire, our Order is but one of several organizations that seek to promote the use of the power you have just witnessed. The training facility we are sending you to will teach you and your insane seer how to access and control this power within yourselves, as I sense that you have the potential to become quite powerful."

"Oh really," Spike was suddenly intrigued.

"Yes," the demon nodded, "and it is rare enough to find those with the potential to control such power, let alone finding two such as yourselves that have possibility of becoming quite... powerful. Save your further questions for those that will train you. Because as rare as you two are... I really only need one of you to go to the training facility to receive the credit for finding you. Just because we want you, does not mean that we need you. Understand?"

The vampire master couldn't help gulping in appreciation of the threat he'd just been handed, particularly since it was more than obvious that the Executioner was stronger than the Judge could've ever hoped to be. "Perfectly," Spike's voice squeaked a little as he nodded his understanding.

"Excellent," the blue demon was suddenly all smiles. Turning to the minions, it ordered, "Prepare them for the journey and separate a contingent for their escort. Also... go recruiting. I have a feeling that we'll need some fodder for our hunt tomorrow night."

"At once, Executioner," the new chief minion snapped to attention and made it happen.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" the Executioner snapped at Spike and Drusilla.

They immediately turned and followed the new head toady and said nothing.

The Executioner smirked to himself as he watched the two new 'recruits' scurry off and flexed his energy once more. Every since he'd mastered demonic energy and passed the threshold to create Demonic Chi-Armor, he'd been the Omega Order's Fist. With a simultaneous elimination of a Slayer and a Chi-Warrior as well as finding two new potential recruits, he was due for a promotion.

Laughing evilly, the Executioner let out a pulse of demonic energy, mostly just for the hell of it, but also to let the cursed Chi-Warrior know who and what was now here. Less than two miles away, Jason looked up from Willow's unconscious body to the general direction of the warehouse district, a frown marring his face. After a second, he turned his full attention back to Willow.

Next Day

Sunnydale High Library

Buffy regarded her friend as she walked in alongside Xander with Cordelia cowering behind them. Willow had spent most of the evening in the Library, first unconscious, then speaking with Jason before going home just to come right back at the crack of dawn.

"How are you doing, Will?" she asked carefully.

"I'm... coping," the normally vibrant redhead took some time to reply. "Jason explained what he thinks happened, and... I can hear Dolphin in my head now." The way she quietly added that made Buffy think that her friend was afraid she'd think her crazy.

Buffy smiled and nodded, then openly admitted, "I've been communicating with Lioness ever since that fight with Xander in the quarry. She has lots of advice, some of it pretty good. Still feels like I've got my mother in my head though."

"Yeah," Willow nodded, smiling now, "Dolphin's chosen to sound like my dad. Doesn't exactly help with the not-creeping-out, what with privacy issues and all."

Buffy shrugged, "Lioness isn't so bad with me. She, at least, knows when to but out, unlike my mother. Plus we talk about other stuff sometimes too, besides just Chi-Armor and slaying and all that. They're good listeners, and it's so much better than just talking to yourself."

"Yeah," Willow agreed.

Xander and Cordelia stared at the two of them like they were going crazy and they were two minutes away from being hauled off in straight jackets.

"Uh, what the heck are you guys talking about?!" Xander blurted out.

"Yeah, and how come Raven hasn't talked to me since the bridge!" Cordelia whined.

Xander blinked and took a step back from the girl he'd been making out with for the past few months, now looking at her the same way he'd been looking at Buffy and Willow a second ago.

Buffy shrugged at Cordelia's question before her eyes glazed over slightly, like she was listening to someone she could not see, before focusing back on Cordelia and replied, "Your need hasn't been great enough yet. You have to approach the spirit, not the other way around. We have to open ourselves up to the possibilities of the unbelievable. At least that's what Lioness says. Me, I was just willing to try anything to beat Xander the other day. Willow..." she trailed off as her eyes glazed over again, apparently listening to her Animal Spirit Guide at the moment.

"Uh..." she finally said, "Willow was under a... great deal of stress and gave the mental equivalent of screaming out in pain. It was enough for Dolphin to establish the connection as her need overrode the rules of keeping our minds open to the unbelievable. Lioness also says that it's why her element showed up first, as Dolphin triggered it as a defensive measure as he couldn't be sure what situation Willow was in when she cried out. All of our spirits, by the way, advise that we don't try recreating that stress as it can be..." she frowned and seemed to be arguing with herself, or rather with Lioness all of a sudden. "OK, OK, I got it! It can be dangerous. And don't look at me like that, I already asked how it could be dangerous, she's not telling."

"Because the results are unpredictable," Jason answered for her as he walked in.

"It's one thing if you really are in a life or death situation," he continued, "but Willow almost killed Xander and Cordelia yesterday because of a misunderstanding and an overreaction. And it won't always be your elements developing early. Sometimes it could be the Chi-Armor manifesting itself, sometimes it could just be a single piece of the armor, which can have lasting consequences. Sometimes it's something else entirely. So, until you're ready and can reach 100 percent on your own, don't try it!"

"Got it," Xander nodded. "Now back to the hearing our Animal Spirit Guides part?"

"You haven't tried to speak to Hyena since the meditation, have you Xander?" Jason asked.

"Uh, no," the black haired teen stated like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Shame," Jason said back, "she could really help you out in gaining Chi-Armor that much faster. Or potentially, at all."

"Yeah, well, I'm not shutting the hairy storm chaser out, I'm just not begging for help any time soon," he said with finality.

"Storm chaser?" Jason questioned, a curious expression on his face.

"Well, class is starting soon, I just wanted to check on you Wills," Buffy hugged her friend and then grabbed her books and was on her way out the door. "See you guys later. Oh, and Mom wants me to do some errands later this afternoon, so I'm going to miss meditation training, but I'll make up for it by stopping by before patrol."

"Actually," Jason moved quickly to stop her, "we'll be going to the quarry again, at least until sundown. After your done, feel free to go ahead and go on patrol, we'll all probably run into one another at some point."

"Oh, OK, cool," Buffy smiled and hurried onto class, the other teens quickly following her example as the bell was only a few minutes from ringing.

Later on, after sunset, Buffy was walking along her patrol route, swinging past the same empty lot where she'd fought the Judge several weeks past on a whim. She'd already caught a couple newbie vamps trying to 'seduce' their first meals at the Bronze and summarily dusted them without problem. She'd learned by now how to only partially summon her incomplete ghostly Chi-Armor, allowing her to more easily dust them by shoving her armored arm through their chests rather than waste good wooden stakes. Thanks to Lioness, she was learning lots of little tricks like that.

Except, that was just it, they were only tricks. Little things like focusing her enhanced senses that somehow let her see and hear better for as long as she kept her concentration, the partial conversion of her life energy into solid energy, and ways of shortening the amount of time it took her to do the conversion in the first place. On her own, she'd probably still be meditating for several long seconds before the armor would form, now it was as simple as moving her own body to activate the partial armor, and just as instinctive.

The real prize, however, she was not getting any closer to. True, 100 percent Chi-Armor was practically as far away now as it was before she'd ever met Jason Everheart. And Lioness's little hints and small tricks were not helping in bringing her nearer to her goal.

Her Animal Spirit Guide counseled patience and caution. That the Lioness chose to sound like her mother made such advice all the more tedious to the normally impatient Slayer.

So, after helping her real mom in running some errands at the mall, she went out on patrol, hoping to burn off some of her frustration. It really was coincidence that this nights patrol path took her near the place where she'd faced the Judge and witnessed what Chi-Armor could really do. At first she just thought of it as nerves, because she was near this place, but as she moved through the various alleyways amongst the warehouses, she knew with little doubt that she was being watched.

She almost stopped to call her silent observers out, but Lioness advised caution, without saying the words that is. She paused for a few steps as she passed the alleyway that would take her to the same empty lot, then quickly moved past it, feeling the presence of something much more powerful than what she was used to facing on patrol. Lioness agreed and silently urged her to find Jason and the others. Sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately, as fate would have it, the moment she started to hurry along back towards the High School, the same Omega-uniform vamps started to pop out of the proverbial woodwork, and Buffy felt that near-overwhelming presence move in closer.

"... Just great," the blond Slayer muttered to herself as she waited until the last second before activating her solid-energy armor to 20 percent, enough to dust the vamps with ease, but with no sign of the ghost-armor or any clue as to what she was really doing.

That presence she felt, undoubtedly the new boss that had showed up after Jason had taken out the Judge, was almost on top of them, and she knew she didn't have enough time. Using her enhanced speed that she possessed when using solid-energy, she rapidly closed the distance between her and the nearest group of uniformed vampires. They didn't know what hit them.

The first group were all decapitated with a single swipe from the edge of her arm. The next three after that were likewise decapitated, one after the other. After that, she started shooting back and forth, punching her hand through their chests, her fingers and palm flat. The dust was only beginning to settle from those first vampires when Buffy realized there were no more vampires for her to destroy.

Not wanting to waste the opportunity, she leapt as high and as far as she could away from that overbearing presence. Unfortunately, whatever she was feeling seemed aware of her suddenly flight and before she'd even landed from her first leap, it was upon her.

In fact, it was standing there waiting for her when she landed, with another fifty plus vampires to back it up. 'It' in this case was a demon of the same species and physical features as the Judge was. Except this one was much, much more powerful, and wasn't wearing medieval style leather armor. The armor that it was wearing, however, scared the crap out of Buffy much more than anything else did at the moment. It was form-fitting black energy armor. Chi-energy.

Buffy gulped and practically screamed for Lioness to get her furry butt out of the grass and help her NOW! The Animal Spirit Guide was whispering in the back of her mind before her call had even finished echoing in her own head, offering words of comfort, support and calming her down enough that the terror faded and allowed her to think.

"Well, well, well," the demon was saying as the Slayer was briefly overwhelmed by her panic. "You must be that pretty little Slayer that my cousin found so interesting that he disobeyed orders from the Omega Council itself. Hard to believe that someone like you could give the old bastard a scratch, let along injure him enough that he was incapacitated for a full month. Then again, as punishment for disobeying their orders, the Council did forbid him from healing himself through consumption of humanity. That was his schtick, you see."

"So who, or what are you?" Buffy snapped at the demon, once she'd regained her composure.

"I am the Executioner," the blue-headed demon bowed mockingly. "Fist of the Omega Order."

"Let me guess, the Judge's replacement?" she snarled, doing her best to power her chi-energy as much as she could while keeping him talking.

"Please," the Executioner scoffed, surprising the Slayer a bit. "We have no interest whatsoever in the Hellmouth or the little burg Wilkins built on top of it. The only interest I have in you is simply to learn who it was that finally killed the Judge. Then kill you to draw that person out so I may kill him. It's kind of what I do, you see. Goes with the title. I kill lots of things."

"How do you know I didn't kill him? I did, after all, injure him so badly that no extra healing or not, put him down for a month," she smartly replied.

"I don't think so," the Executioner laughed, stepping forward, inviting Buffy to take a step back. She still wasn't powered up enough that she could match this guy. Not yet, but Lioness was helping as much as the Spirit Guide could and she was getting pretty close, she could feel it.

"Yes, you are surprisingly gifted for a Slayer, and undoubtedly very skilled," he mocked her, taking another step forward as she stepped back, getting dangerously close to the ring of vampires surrounding them. "But don't make laugh. While skilled, and possessing a surprising amount of power for one such as yourself, you do not have even a tenth of the power needed to vaporize a being of the Judge's power. Kill him, yes, possibly anyway. But our reports confirmed that the Judge was vaporized. Only one type of warrior could do that, and you're not there yet, Slayer."

He took another step forward, but this time she could not retreat, at least not without bumping into the vampires behind her, and she did not wish to invite opportunities for them to grab onto her.

"Tell me," the demon growled at her, "where is the Chi-Warrior that defeated the Judge? What is his name, and what organization does he answer to? Tell me this, and I promise your death will be, relatively, painless. I'll also be willing to swear to leave everyone else in this little hamlet alive, but for that Warrior of course. This is, of course, only a one-time offer that expires if you say anything but the information I require."

She did say something to him, but obviously not what he'd asked for. It was also a word her mother would have been shocked and pissed to hear come from her mouth at all. Lioness, on the other hand, was quite impressed.

"My, such colorful language from one so young," the Executioner mocked. "Oh well, times up. Now we do this the hard, but still fun, way. Wear her down for me please." The vampires all surged forward at once.

"Shit," Buffy cursed, eyes darting back and forth all over the battleground.

'Lioness, now would be a really REALLY good time for some of that expert advice of yours!'

Keep fighting. Follow your instincts. I will help where I can, but you should also conserve as much energy as you can against the jackals here. You will need all of your power to face against the demon, so be ready for it!

'Gee, thanks,' Buffy mentally sighed, even as her body remained extremely aware of everything going on around her.

After that, there was no more time for private conversations. The vampires, while much slower and unable to really hurt her in any way, were very good at swarming and that made it difficult to land a 'dust' shot with every punch. Finally, she just resorted to ripping their arms, legs and heads off when she could, the rest of the time just punching them as hard as she could. Sometimes that sent them flying, but not every time unfortunately.

One lucky punch scattered the pile-up on her, giving her one, maybe three seconds of breathing room. It was just enough for her to finish dusting the lamed ones and then meet the next wave with accurate instant killing strokes. She even pulled out her stake and used it a couple times before having to toss it to take out one that was about to start throwing things long distance. She went back to her tactic of crippling them or literally disarming them, feeling the fatigue begin to creep up on her.

Using solid energy might make things easier and let her move faster and stronger than ever before, but as she had alluded to prior to this, using her energy in this way was like clenching a muscle, and the more she converted into solid energy, the harder she was clenching that muscle and the more strain that put on her mind and body.

'So much for going around with an invincible forcefield on all the time,' she thought to herself.

Finally, she began making enough of a dent that even with all of the remaining vampires trying to dogpile her, she had some breathing room and could start taking out the major threats. For the most part she ignored the crippled ones, and the ones she'd disarmed, well, they provided her with some new melee weapons that were interesting to use. Who knew vampire-arms made good clubs against other vampires?

Seeing that his forces were dwindling faster than he'd anticipated, the Executioner silently ordered a withdrawal. Seeing her opponents suddenly back off rather than continue the assault, she decided to prevent as many future encounters as she could and quickly dusted the injured or slow ones before they could be pulled back, leaving the Executioner with only fifteen to twenty minions that she could see. That didn't mean he didn't have a few stashed away at a hideout or just around the corner, but it was significantly less than what he'd started out with.

Buffy was breathing heavily and was sweating under her ghost-armor, feeling the desperate need to power down, sooner rather than later. Lioness, however, told her that would be a very, very bad idea! He'd only hinted at it, not really shown it, but it was clear this Executioner had his own version of the Judge's ability to burn away Humanity, and she had no doubt that the moment she dropped her armor, even if it was only for a split-second, he would attack with a long-range energy blast that would probably kill her in that split-second.

To her relief, however, he did not immediately attack her, or send in another wave of the vampires, giving her a bit of time to rest even if she weren't able to relax, so to speak.

"Interesting," the demon mused. "You're very skilled, and surprisingly powerful. I did not expect this to take as long as it has. Still, without Chi-Armor, you have no hope of surviving."

'He's not kidding,' she admitted, panting heavily while trying to keep her strength up.

"Who said anything about surviving? I'm going to take you down, one way or another," she snarled at him.

The Executioner grinned sadistically, a macabre sight of the blue demon's maw that was uglier and more terrifying than most of the things Buffy usually saw at night on the Hellmouth. "I believe I will enjoy killing you," the demon cried out. She snorted and readied herself, ignoring his taunts.

"I've seen uglier, and scarier," was all she said.

The Executioner sniffed in disdain, and then he was moving. Buffy suspected that if she hadn't been using solid energy, it would have been like he'd vanished. Thankfully, she was just fast enough that she could see it as the demon jumped high into the air and came down like a cannonball.

Buffy narrowly dodged to the side, then struck out a kick at the 'unprotected' head, only for the demon to grab her leg with his black-energy covered fist, grin at her again, then pick her up and throw her around a couple of times before tossing her into the side of a building. She couldn't help crying out as she impacted, the force rattling her even through her ghost armor.

'LIONESS! Really, really, REALLY need that last step to getting Chi-Armor, like NOW!!' she practically screamed inside her own head.

It doesn't work like that—

'DON'T TELL ME THAT LOAD OF CRAP!!' she screamed in her head, even as she stood back to her feet, her stance unsteady and face a mask of pain and concentration. 'DO NOT WASTE MY TIME WITH ALL THAT NEW AGE PSYCHO-BABBLE! Plain and simple; how the HELL do I go from just solid energy to Chi-Armor?'

You have to give all of yourself. Nothing less. All of it. Even that which you have to live. Anything less and it would just be 100% solid energy. You must open yourself to the possibilities...

"Enough," she rasped out loud.

"Oh no, we're just getting started," the Executioner taunted, coming closer.

"Wasn't... talking to you..." she gasped, then immediately surged forward, swinging her fists.

The Executioner scoffed again, easily dodging her first wild swing, but missed her real hit going into his gut! In fact, the dodge actually turned the demon into her punch so it had that much more impact, which turned out to be more than enough to knock the wind out of the demon and send it flying back to the middle of the road.

Buffy didn't let up there, charging forward with surprising strength, planning on continuing her attack. Unfortunately for her, the Executioner was made of sterner stuff so that her punch, while effective, didn't do any lasting damage.

"Not bad!" the blue-skinned demon screamed at her, surging back to its feet. "But not good enough! Without Chi-Armor, there is no way you have even a prayer of defeating me!"

He swung a fist, as fast as ever. Buffy pushed herself to above 90 percent, the ghost armor a solid grayish white form, one that 'ghosted' past the demon's attacks and slammed another hard-impact punch against it's torso. It was like a teenage girl hitting a stone pillar...

...Only for that pillar to suddenly cry out in pain and fall to its knees.

She did not hesitate in continuing her assault, leaping up in a roundhouse kick to the head, sending the Executioner skidding back along the road for a good fifteen feet. When the demon stood back up, a clear scrape was visible along the left side of it's face and an ugly purple bruise forming on the right side. Buffy smirked to herself in approval.

"Not bad, I think that's actually an improvement over your ugly mug. Let me help in making it even better looking," she taunted, pushing herself for all she was worth to squeeze just another percentage point from her life force into her solid energy armor. It seemed to be stuck at just above 90 percent!

"I am going to kill you," the Executioner growled, no longer teasing as it had been before. It got to its feet and charged with real intent this time. Buffy was already moving.

The two met in an all-out charge in the middle of the street, Buffy in her ghost armor going in low and hard, the Executioner in his black energy armor going high and wide. It was like a train wreck between two high-speed locomotives on the same track coming at each other.

The shockwaves from their impact shattered glass and rocked the foundations of the nearby buildings. Cracks formed in the street where their blows met, the cement breaking apart just from the force coming from their attacks!

Normally they would both back off and try another venue of attack, where they had unrestricted access or a better means of attacking, but they both knew that there would be none, so they continued their all out assault, neither one backing down for an instant. To do so could mean death!

Meanwhile, Jason was escorting the others back to the Library from an afternoon spent training at the rock quarry when he felt the sudden surge of ki, followed instantly by a disgustingly familiar surge of demonic energy, the taint unmistakable. 'What the hell the Executioner of all Omega's members was doing on the Hellmouth?' he thought to himself, even as he got his sudden panic under control.

"Jason?" Willow asked, concerned when she saw the youth stop and look up in a very specific direction. "Is something wrong? Everything all right?"

"No," the blue-eyed warrior stated, startling the three trainees behind him, "Buffy's fighting. She's fighting another of Omega's agents. We have to move! Now!"

They wasted no time demanding explanations or asking questions. They all immediately went to the maximum percentage of solid energy armor that they could, with the exception of Jason, who merely went to 10 percent for the jumping advantage. Keeping a lock on the direction where he felt the energy surges coming from, Jason lead the way, leaping across rooftops and streets the same way anyone else would jump fences when cutting across yards.

It still took them several minutes to get even close to the warehouse district, mostly because Jason was holding back so the others wouldn't be lost. Even then, he'd never really been that good at sensing things unless they were close, so it took more time for him to pinpoint the exact street that he was feeling both Buffy and the Executioner were on. By the time they got there, it looked like the battle was half over already.

"Buffy!" Xander shouted, seeing the fight between a black figure and a ghost-white figure during his leap on the next street over. Before he could leap again, Jason grabbed him and held them all back.

"Wait," he ordered. "We can't just go charging in there. This is an agent of Omega, like the Judge, but much higher ranked. He probably has a few vampires hidden around too. We need to sneak around and take out those vamps so that Buffy doesn't get overwhelmed or distracted. You guys go and do that, quickly. I'll go help Buffy, alright?"

Xander looked like he wanted to argue, but both Cordelia and Willow held him back, putting their hands on his shoulders and each gave them her own look, asking him to follow the order. Reluctantly, he sighed and nodded his head.

"Good, go!" Jason urged them to move.

Each bearing their own level of ghost armor, the ran off into the night to help their friend and slay some vampires. Jason watched them go, then grinned and calmly walked to the cross-street that would take him to an alley where he could watch Buffy's fight from the shadows. He was impressed though. Not many people in the world could piss of Omega so much that they sent in the Executioner almost right away.

Especially not just for him.

After all, what other reason would warrant two Omega Agents coming to the Hellmouth? The Judge was in Sunnydale on a whim and only attacked Buffy because she'd dusted one of his minions, probably an upper lieutenant in his private army. Then Jason showed up and started teaching Buffy and her friends how to use Chi-Armor and while the Judge targeted Buffy, Jason showed up and destroyed him. Now the Executioner is in town? Hardly a coincidence.

Jason came to the end of the alley just as Buffy in her ghost armor and the Executioner were clashing in the middle of the street, throwing pure power at each other. Jason smirked as he kept himself hidden in the shadows of the alley and continued to watch.

"Interesting," he commented, observing how Buffy's ghost armor, 91 percent at the very most, was able to withstand contact with the Executioner's Demon Chi-Armor. In fact it should have shattered upon contact, if not from being in the mere presence of fully formed Demon Chi-Armor. Despite the apparent fact that the Executioner didn't have the armor covering his head made no illusion to the fact that it wielded fully powered Chi-Armor.

What this meant was quite simple to deduce. Buffy was stronger than the blue-skinned demon. Not just a little bit either. So much stronger that if she had her own Chi-Armor, she could squash him like a bug if she wished to, Demon Chi-Armor or no Demon Chi-Armor. It was also clear that the Executioner was aware of this fact and it pissed him off a great deal, making him angry and thus he was making mistakes.

Still, that was only if Buffy could ever activate her own Chi-Armor, which didn't seem to be happening right now. Jason was curious, however, and decided to wait and see what would happen next. Right now she had a chance, a 4:1 chance, but a chance.

Jason continued to watch silently as Buffy and the Execution continued to pound on each other, sometimes knocking one or the other back into a building or down the street, but they always got up again to continue. He sighed, getting bored. There was a reason those that used Chi-Armor associated themselves with elements and incorporated those elements into said armors. You could pound two Chi-Armor warriors together for days at a time and the most that would happen is they might get muscle strain and be a little dehydrated.

Pounding another Chi-Armor warrior into submission never works, though one could break through the armor enough to reach the flesh within, eventually that is. After all the armor is all about defense. Thus, elemental powers to add attack power to tear down those defenses are needed. Unfortunately for Buffy, she hasn't done that yet, and so the Executioner has the advantage, but thankfully not used it.

Almost as though they were on the same wavelength, Buffy realized what it was she was doing and what she was still missing. She landed a flying roundhouse kick that knocked the Executioner back, enough that she had a few moments breathing room, time she used to speak with Lioness.

'OK, no more holding back, Lioness! This is crunch time and I don't have time to figure out riddles! How do I find out what my element is? If Willow can create a wave that floods the school, then there has to be something that I can do, even without Chi-Armor!'

You already know what your element is.

'Oh yeah? What?'

Willow told you she appeared on the ocean when communing with Dolphin. Then she summoned water. I'm not trying to make things hard for you Buffy, but somethings you have to figure out for yourself. You are so close, you just need to open yourself up to what you are truly capable of.

Buffy considered, keeping her guard up as the Executioner got back up to it's feet.

Willow appeared on the ocean during that spirit walk. Then in a fit of temper, summoned a torrent of water. So where did she appear?

On a grassy savanna in front of a mountain peak called Pride Rock. Earth maybe? But then, why not a mountain range or nothing but one giant mountain, or in a cave inside the earth itself?

OK, so not earth. She was missing something, she knew it. Something small, but obvious at the same time. What was it? What was her element?

"Now is really not a good time to be distracted," the Executioner taunted her, right before throwing a hay maker at her unmoving head. Buffy's body reacted instantly and without thought, blocking the arm at the elbow and driving a knee up to the demon's torso before throwing him back. Buffy barely even noticed, her Slayer instincts directing her actions more than she was.

Thinking back, Buffy tried to remember what else she had experienced during her meeting with Lioness the first time. The grass? No, it really wasn't significant, and Buffy couldn't think of any element that had anything to do with just grass. Besides, it did nothing more than blow in the... wind?

The wind. It was constantly blowing the entire time, moving the grass like the waves of the sea, whistling through the rocks, and clearing away and stirring up everything all at once! Her element was the wind!

You understand now.

Buffy glared at the Executioner with new strength, clenching her fists. The demon, seeing this, was taken aback for a moment, wondering what this Slayer thought she had up her sleeves. She had already surprised him more times than expected, he didn't need any more.

Not wasting any words, Buffy charged and attacked the Executioner anew, keeping her strikes sure and swift, while flowing her body around the demon's attacks like she was the wind itself. No sudden transformation was taking place or anything like that, and Buffy was still only at 90 percent, maybe 91 percent finally, but not enough to make a huge difference. She was, however, able to adapt to her situation and began using a new tactic that Lioness's "understanding" had helped her figure out. The Executioner, annoyed, redoubled its efforts in attacking.

While that was going on in the street, over in the alley, Jason was still silently observing, and he was rather pleased when he felt Buffy trying to consciously access her element. It wasn't something obvious, but for one that was already in tune with their own element, they could usually feel when someone else started to draw on theirs. Likewise, that did not automatically mean that she had instant access and control over her element, just that she was trying to draw on it. From what he'd seen so far, it had helped her some, giving her a more unique style to use when fighting, but none of the signs of control were there just yet.

At that moment, Xander, Willow and Cordelia came up behind him in the alley. They had a few dust stains on their clothes, particularly on Xander, but were otherwise unharmed.

"You weren't kidding when you told us you were teaching us how we could be Slayers ourselves!" Cordelia said in a rush. "That was amazing! Wasn't it?"

"Some definite satisfaction was had on my part," Xander happily reported.

"I tried to drown a couple, but all I did was make hit them with holy water," Willow remarked.

"Well, since the water you summon is pretty much created in the purest form imaginable, it sort of is holy water, just minus the ritual blessing," Jason explained before turning back to the fight.

Seeing what he was looking at, all three teens were stunned.

"Uh, why aren't you out there?" Xander demanded.

"Because I really don't need to be right now," he replied easily.

"But what about Buffy?!" Willow exclaimed.

Jason shrugged and said, "Looks like she's doing OK to me."

"I thought you said you were going to help Buffy!" Cordelia shouted.

"Did I? Oh well, looks like she doesn't need my help after all. Though I am glad we rushed, I did not want to miss this."

"That does it!" Xander growled, lurching forward.

They all thought he was going to grab Jason and start threatening him to help Buffy or else, even Jason thought that. Instead, he ran out of the alley onto the street itself and started towards the fight, intent on helping Buffy himself. Jason blurred forward and grabbed the taller teen by his shoulder.

"Xander! Stop! Don't interfere!" he called, trying to hold him back.

Unfortunately it was too late.

Buffy and the Executioner had both sensed Xander's approach the moment he stepped on the street, and when they heard Jason shout, they turned and saw all of Buffy's friends standing there on the side of the road.

"Shit..." Buffy cursed out loud, her voice muffled and barely heard outside of the ghost armor.

"Oh, some back-up Slayer? Or by any chance are these just some hapless 'innocent bystanders', huh? I think they look like target practice. Get them!" the demon shouted, pointing.

After a minute where nothing happened, the Executioner shouted again, "I said GET THEM, YOU—!" The demon stared around in disbelief, but could not deny that all of his vampire minions had been destroyed by, all evidence pointing towards the four human teens before him. "How...?"

"Erhrm," Jason coughed, getting everyones attention, now that he had Xander safely behind him. "Very sorry to interrupt. You both can go back to what you were doing. Again, very sorry. Kick his ass Buffy!"

"Huh?!" the teens all screamed, even Buffy.

"Wait, who are you?"

"The Executioner asking a lowly human for his name?" Jason grinned, teasing.

They almost thought the big blue-faced demon was blushing, but his anger became apparent soon enough. "That's NOT what I meant and you know it! Who are you? Are you the one I was sent after or not? Are you the Chi-Warrior that destroyed the Judge!?!!"

"Yep," Jason answered easily enough. "Name is Jason Everheart. Nice to have met you. Please be quick about it Buffy, you have school tomorrow remember!"

"Wait, you aren't going to fight him?" Willow chirped, pointing at the Demon Chi-Armor weilding creature. "You helped Buffy quick enough the last time! She went and fought the Judge for who knows how long before we finally found her and the second we did, you stepped in and destroyed him, just like that! So what's changed?"

"Buffy couldn't win that fight," Jason answered with a shrug.

"And the reason you're not helping now?!" Xander screamed, incredulous.

"Now, she can beat him easily. With Chi-Armor. With the Judge, she'd only just figured out how to form solid-energy, she could only convert a maximum of twenty percent, not even a full fifth of her life force into solid energy armor. Now, she's holding her own at just over 90 percent. She can do it, if she wants to. So, KICK HIS ASS BUFFY!!" he screamed like he was at a spectator sport.

"I am so confused right now," Buffy said to herself, but decided to refocus her attention on the fight, then figure it all out later.

The Executioner seemed to have come to the same conclusion and the two of them threw their partial-armored forms at one another once more.

Xander, Willow and Cordelia just stared, stunned beyond words. Jason looked on with anticipation. Buffy did her best just to survive, because as much as Jason was acting like this was just another patrol where she wasted the vamps with no problem, this was anything but!

I wonder.

Buffy really did not need the distraction of Lioness's commentary on her fight.

'Wonder... WHAT?'

I wonder if this is really any different from just another demon on patrol for you. You are still holding back so much, it's like you don't wish to go all out.

'WHAT?!!' Buffy screamed in her head and out loud, a burst of adrenaline allowing her to throw the Executioner back with a couple strong punches.

Why is it you still have not achieved Chi-Armor? Even with all my help, you should have figured it out by now. You are still holding back.

'I... am?' Buffy stopped as the revelation rocked her. Followed by the Executioner rocketing her back into the wall of a nearby building with a kick.

"GAAAHHHH!" Buffy cried as she went into the wall, a vertical crater, the upper pieces of it falling down on her.

Suddenly, there was a sound of shattering glass, like a thousand mirrors breaking all at once.

The next thing anyone knew, Buffy, just normal Buffy, was lying there amidst the debris, looking shaken and battered. She didn't know what had happened, but she did know that her ghost armor was gone and she felt as weak as a kitten.

The Executioner started laughing.

"Oh don't tell me, you neglected to mention the limitations of Chi-Armor when you taught this Slayer, eh?" the blue-headed demon called to Jason. "How there is a time limit on how long her energy can remain in solid-form before reverting back to natural. Or that the more exertion used hastens that already short amount of time. No? Oh well, it was fun, and it certainly got my blood pumping, but I tire of this."

The Executioner's fists began to spark with crimson energy, and Buffy knew she was dead. She should have been dead already, but obviously the demon had been going easy on her by not using those energy blasts he could use. Buffy was scared, she didn't want to die.

"I'll save you for last," the Executioner gave Buffy it's horrifying grin, then turned to the only other four on the street. It was after sunset after all, and they were closer to the warehouse district than downtown.

Buffy's eyes went wide, a horrified gasp of "No!" escaped her lips, and then she was moving without any control over her actions. The Executioner formed and then cast a familiar-looking crimson lightning bolt towards Jason and the others, but before it was even halfway there, Buffy, her ghost armor fully in place, intercepted the bolt, letting it knock her back a couple of feet and then stopping. The Executioner and her friends looked on in startled shock.

You will not harm them!` Buffy's voice through her armor took on a different quality.

"I thought I was done with you," the Executioner scoffed, then formed another bolt and fired again. Buffy's open fist shot out and intercepted the new bolt and held it easily. "What?!"

`You will NOT harm them!` she intoned again.

"How did you...? No, it does not matter, you never stood a chance! You never did, foolish Slayer! Crimson Lightning!" the demon cried, shooting forth both his hands with bolts this time.

Buffy's ghost armored form adjusted itself, and same as before, caught both energy attacks in the open palms of her hands, blocking them fully. Those behind her, particularly Jason, noticed how her heels were buried in the asphalt, small trenches in front of her feet, but the rest was giving her enough to properly brace herself against it.

"IMPOSSIBLE! HOW ARE YOU DOING THAT?!!" the demon screamed in outrage.

Instead of answering, Buffy's ghost like figure responded the same.

`YOU WILL NOT HARM THEM! I won't let you!`

The Executioner stared, uncomprehending, but witnessing the same as the others as Buffy's ghost armor began to glow brighter, shining with an inner light. "No!" the demon cried out, covering it's face as the light became blinding.

"100 percent," Jason grinned, unaffected by the light, though everyone else was covering their eyes and faces by this point.

"POWER UP!!" Buffy screamed, on Lioness's urging, and felt several things converge within her and she felt what was happening, even as her body was surrounded by a blinding sphere of light, blocking all view of her body from sight.

Within the light, Buffy could feel it. She could feel her very energy, her soul almost, become solid and take shape, forged by her will and resolve to protect her friends. Her fists relaxed and then clenched, becoming armored talons. Her feet extended, feeling the armor form tight around her skin, becoming her skin almost. Along her back, right between her shoulder blades, she felt that familiar tingling-burning when she first began using her solid energy, but now she felt something emerge. Metallic-feather wings, like angel wings, spread from her back and flapped once. Across her chest, the armor formed and the crest of a lioness formed, inlaid gold on white. Around Buffy's face and head, the helmet of her armor coalesced out of the wind itself, a swept-back design with only a tight slit-visor, the rest a blazing white highlighted with inlaid gold designs. As the transformation completed, the sphere of light exploded outwards, blinding everyone, but in its place stood a warrior.

Buffy, if that's even who was standing there anymore, stood over six feet tall, almost seven. Slim and hard-packed, the most notable feature of her Chi-Armor was the two giant, armor-covered wings coming out the back. The entire armor was a bright, pearly white with yellow-gold highlights and inlaid patterns that shifted between wing-swept and the crest and images of a lioness.

Behind her, because it was quite clearly a her by a number the armor's smaller features, her friends all noticed that her heels had actual heels! Four-inch heels came from the back of her white armored boots, although it looked like there were no individual pieces, but rather everything was interconnected and was part of the whole. Nothing coming off or looking like it was attached at all. The feature-less, swept-back, eye-slit visor helmet added to the intimidation factor, but it also threw confusion on whether or not this was really Buffy.

Thankfully, that was answered easily enough.

Raising her arm, the noise of heavy armor moving unmistakable on the quiet street, they all heard Buffy's voice echoing, `Don't even think about targeting them again!`

The odd thing was that the echoes weren't normal, in fact it sounded like she was speaking directly into their minds! Jason saw their confusion and quickly explained.

"Telepathy. It's the natural form of communication for those that can use Chi-Armor. Because the body is essentially contained within it's own pocket universe, making noises and speech is impossible, so the mind reaches out to those than can understand it and the thoughts that are normally translated into speech by our body, are instead broadcast telepathically."

"And the reason you didn't tell us about this before?" Willow inquired.

Jason shrugged. "It never came up."

Buffy's armored form looked back at them, and Jason specifically. `We'll be having a conversation about that kind of stuff very soon, Mister!` she spoke to him.

"Can't wait," Jason uncomfortably remarked.

"UWAAAAHH!" the Executioner attacked while Buffy's back was turned, aiming a punch at her head, seeing it as the best chance to gain an advantage.

Buffy's armored talon shot up an instant before the Demon Chi-Armored fist would have hit, clenched tight around the demon's wrist and stopping all forward motion with just that. The impressive thing was that her 'head' was still turned towards Jason. Slowly, her armor clacking loudly with each motion, Buffy turned back towards the Executioner.

`Oh, you're still here? Usually they run away when it gets to this point. Guess I got too used to Spike. He was always good at running away. It was annoying, but it made our fights short.`

Seeing that her opponent was now thoroughly confused, Buffy casually tossed the Executioner away and onto his backside. Information flooding her mind, both from her own instincts and Lioness's direct input, she understood a bit of what she was capable of now.

"You won't defeat me! I am the EXECUTIONER!!" The demon screamed and then gathered his fists and started shooting crimson lightning bolts at her. "Crimson Lightning!"

Buffy judged those lightning bolts the same she would an incoming fist or kick from a vampire on patrol and instantly knew how to best defend. Her armored wings suddenly expanded and then wrapped around her body, forming an interconnecting shield that took and absorbed the energy blasts with ease. The Executioner tried again and again, but five minutes later, Buffy's white armored wings weren't even scuffed.

When the attacks finally stopped coming, the wings extended once more, but much faster than expected. There was a mental shout of, `Air Cutters!` Dozens of small, green-gold energy blades shot out from the metallic wings, every one of them aimed for the Executioner, even if their flight paths were rather erratic.

"Hellion Crack!" the Executioner slammed it's fist into the ground and molten cracks spread from where he hit. A number of jets of hellfire shot out from those cracks, eradicating a number of the Cutters, but some still got through, knocking the Executioner back from the hits.

"Jump!" Jason ordered, instantly going back to 10 percent himself and leaping onto the roof of the building behind them. The others quickly followed his example.

Buffy just flapped her wings once, twice, three times and she was aloft, a good twenty feet over the street and beyond the influence of his attack. `Say, how do you plan on reaching me all the way up here?` she 'innocently' asked.

The Executioner growled, then smirked and turned his attention to the building that the Chi-Warrior and the Slayer's friends had escaped to. Before the demon could do anything more than that, dozens of Air Cutters were exploding all around him, driving him back. Seconds later, a still flying white winged warrior swooped down to hover between the demon and her friends location.

`I warned you about that,` she hissed, the venom in her voice all the more real via telepathy.

"That was just to get you in range," the Executioner gave her that horrid grin, then held it's hands up above it's head, palms facing each other. "Putrid Death Wave!"

Crimson energy began to spark between the palms, and where they met, an ugly red-black energy orb began to form. Within seconds it grew from the size of a marble to a beach ball, to a van, to a small house. Thankfully it stopped there, but nevertheless it was all the more clear that no matter how fast the Slayer flew, if that then blew at all, she would definitely be caught in the blast. Not that Buffy was going to run. If that thing blew, it would probably take out half of Sunnydale with it, if not more. She couldn't even let that thing blow up, let alone hit her.

Or maybe...

`Let's see just how fast I really am,` she mused, and then shot straight up, and kept going straight up.

"Hah! Fool, it doesn't matter where you go, I just needed to in range so I could lock the attack onto you! Putrid Death Wave: FIRE!" the Executioner hurled the red-black energy orb after the fleeing Chi-Armored Slayer.

Buffy felt it the moment the attack was unleashed. Like the tingle down the back of the neck when a shark is swimming up behind you, or in her case, a vampire stalking her in the graveyard. Good thing that, as the Slayer, in the case of vampires she was the predator.

Once she was about two hundred feet up, and Sunnydale was just a sprinkle of lights far down below, the Death Wave orb rising fast behind her, she stopped and just hovered in the air for a few moments, taking a moment to revel in the fact that she was actually flying.

Then, moment over, she turned her attention to the approaching Demon Element attack. She wasn't sure how she knew how to classify it, but it was as clear to her as the difference between a vampire and a human. Crossing her taloned arms over her chest, she began to concentrate, focusing her will on what she wanted, what she needed to happen. The shoulder plates on her armor began to glow white.

`Echo Cutter!` she called, and two arcs of green-gold energy, one from each shoulder, shot out and down at the approaching orb. They split off from each other and attacked the slower orb from the sides, one going left, the other going right. The energy of the Death Wave was cut in half and halted in it's approach. Before anything else could happen, the two crescent-shaped energy cutters split up again, this time going vertically, one going up, the other going down, and then they did it four more times, going diagonally from every angle before the Demon Element attack had finally had enough and exploded a full thirty feet below Buffy's spot in the sky.

The threat over with, Buffy immediately dove back to where she could sense the demon, and her friends waited. The sky was lit up by the inferno from the exploding energy attacks, but from a distance it could be either fireworks, or a mid-air explosion.

To the Executioner, it looked like his attack had hit and he was the victor. That is, until he saw a white figure diving through the explosion, heading straight for him!

"No! Impossible!"

"Omega demons like to say that a lot when they're getting beat," Jason commented from the roof where he and the others waited for Buffy to finish the battle.

"You knew this would happen, didn't you?" Xander demanded to know.

"Only after we got here," Jason nodded. "But yes, once I saw how Buffy was doing, I knew that she would soon manifest her Chi-Armor. I wanted to give her that chance. That's why I didn't help."

"OK, I forgive you then," Xander said, looking back up, only to see Buffy was even faster in the air than one might originally think. She was already just above street level and with a flare of her wings, stopped only a foot above the ground, right in front of the blue headed demon.

Startled, and clearly scared, the Executioner backed away in fear, tripping over it's own feet and falling to the ground, and even then still trying to scramble away. It got back to it's feet in a hurry and turned and ran.

Tilting her head as she listened to something interesting the Lioness had just told her, those watching could somehow sense that Buffy smirked, like whenever Giles gave her a new weapon to play with... er, to use in battle.

Extending her wings to their full length, Buffy raised her taloned hands out to the sides, and then with a short call of `Razor Winds!` she swung both her arms and her wings forward to create a wave of wind. A wave of wind that quickly turned into a gale force wind that stopped the Executioner in its tracks.

The winds, however, did not stop once the Executioner was halted. In fact, they became even more intense, behaving more like an ultra-localized tornado, with more than enough force to actually pick the big demon up by the wind alone. That was only the beginning.

It started with some small scratches to its face, then the black armor around it began to get scuffed, then scratched in places. Then the scratches turned into gashes and full cuts. The Executioner was screaming during all of this, but those screams could not even be heard over the sound of the wind.

Buffy continued to hold her hands and wings out, but Jason noticed how her taloned fists were slowly starting to contract more and more. It seemed that with every little bit closer to a fist, the stronger the winds around the Executioner became.

It was a weak attack, Jason judged, but an Elemental attack is different from energy attacks. An Elemental Attack can only be countered with another elemental, or a much, much stronger attack. The Executioner, if it was thinking clearly and actually trying, could probably break out of the hold that Buffy had on it, but not easily. Demons that used Chi-Armor had only one option. Demon Element Chi-Armor. It was a sick and twisted combination of Earth and Fire, sort of like brimstone.

Normally both Earth and Fire were strong against Wind, but from the attacks Jason had seen already, he doubted that the Executioner had many pure Elemental Attacks, that Hellion Crack the closest to what Demon Element was normally capable of. There was also no sign of counter attacks in the Executioner's repertoire. He was a hitman, pure and simple.

"Finish it Buffy!" Jason called. "Don't make it suffer any more than it has to!"

The slit-visor white helmet tilted its view to look up at him, then seemed to shrug, and the talons clenched into tight fists. The Executioner's scream finally became loud enough to be heard over the wind, and then it was gone, ripped to shreds by the very wind, and those shreds slice and dices and scattered to the four winds, not even leaving behind any blood.

"Whoa," Cordelia gulped.

"Understatement of the century, Cordy," Xander quipped.

`I think you guys can come down now,` Buffy called, finally settling herself back on the ground, her wings pulled back like the depictions of angels. Except that this angel's wings were covered with white metallic armor.

A quick leap down, and Buffy's friends gathered around her. She retained her Chi-Armor for another few moments, allowing them an up close view, before relaxing. They all stared, Xander, Willow and Cordelia in awe, Jason more analytical.

"Interesting," he commented. "Your Animal Spirit Guide is the Lioness, but because your element is Wind that seems to be enough to give you a pair of wings for flying. Not unheard of, but at the same time I do know of some Wind elements that don't have wings. Usually the only ones to have wings have a bird or otherwise winged Animal Spirit Guide. Very interesting."

"Interesting... is not really the word I would use for it," Xander said.

"Fascinating!" Willow gushed.

"That's the word," Xander quipped with a nod.

Buffy's armor flashed a blinding white, and when it disappeared, it was just Buffy standing there, still a little bruised, but otherwise perfectly fine. Then she collapsed in exhaustion. Thankfully Jason was there in time to catch him.

"Yeah, sorry for not explaining the consequences of using Chi-Armor sooner," he apologized. "But you needed to be able to do it before you could understand exactly how far you can go with it. Xander, care to help me out here a little?"

"Uh, yeah, sure!" Xander was immediately there and helped in picking Buffy up, putting her left arm around his neck while Jason did the same with her right arm, carrying her between them.

"Let's get back to the Library, OK?" Jason suggested.

"Yeah," they all agreed.

"So," Willow asked after they'd gone on for a while, "now what?"

"Now," their trainer answered, "the rest of you have your own turns."

END Episode Four

Preview:Buffy has finally received her Chi-Armor, the pinnacle of Jason's training. Now the others, her friends must all activate their own Chi-Armors. Will they be able to do it in time to meet what is still to come? Now that the Omega Order has lost two of its agents in Sunnydale, what will it the order do, and what does it want with Spike and Drusilla?

Next Episode "Vanguard"