In distant Zhentil Keep, the wizard and leader of the Zhentarim watched the erotic antics of Kannyr Vhok and Aliisza with little interest. His team was in place, watching the events unfold. Perhaps he could use this to his advantage. He could not afford to have such a place be destroyed so suddenly. He glanced into his scrying pool again. He would not allow a demon to get his prize. He rung a bell on his work table and a near instant later a servant appeared, teleporting into the room.
"You rang, milord?" The tiefling, a human born of tainted fiendish blood, was a longstanding member of Zhentarim and a trusted companion, insofar as anyone in the Zhentarim could be trusted. He would be able to blend with the demons better than most other agents. He was also a talented wizard, and so could adjust the outcome favorably.
"Teleport to the Citadel of the Raven and open a portal outside of Sunnydale," he commanded, emphasizing with a slight gesture of his hand. "Join with Peris and the observation team. 'Save' Sunnydale by eliminating the subterranean threat, but do not enter the city until you are invited. Make them come to us. Show they what we have to offer and make them want it. They will be tense during these times."
"Playing the long game then I see?"
"It seems this would be the best method," the elder mage said, grinning under his mask. How surprised would the Cambion be to find his favored method used against him? He did not doubt that Kaanyr Vhok knew he was being spied upon. He had taken lengths to ensure the half-fiend would not be able to tell where the spell had come from and it was amusing to see the creature go to such lengths to pretend not to notice the scrying spell. "A platoon should be enough so long as you bring enough mages. Tanarukks are physically powerful, but as vulnerable to magic as most other creatures."
"I will remember that, milord. I've not forgotten that the same blood runs through my veins," the tiefling said with a shrug. With a quick salute the Black Cloak turned and strode out the room.
"I'll have a glass of the Red Shadowdale-1321 please, in the fine crystal," Manshoon said to his Unseen Servant. He did not even need to look as the invisible creation poured the wine and set the cup directly into his hand. Lifting his mask, the archmage took a sip of the fine red wine. "Ah, Shadowdale. A land I would enjoy the destruction of, yet I would so miss the wine."
He pulled a large tome off the shelf of his library entitled "The Planes and Their Inhabitants," before sitting down for a long read. He would need to learn more about these peoples before he went too much further. A heavy hand might work for the local cities, but if his estimation was correct, and it usually was, Sunnydale would react poorly to a military takeover. He could easily find their positions switched. He needed to somehow control the amount of information they received from the West and manipulate that which they learned from the east.
"Ah, here it is," he said aloud as he scanned the chapters. "'There was once a sister world to Abeir-Toril. There was much contact between them in the beginning, but long before the Time of Netheril contact became sporadic at best. It is believed that this world is the land from which the Mulhorandi god-kings originated. There are many other instances of peoples arriving in Faerun from other worlds. Not all of these are believed to come from the same world, but sages to hypothesize there is a certain commonality to many of them.' Interesting. I wonder what deities they brought with them this time."
It would most likely be some sort of engineering deity judging by their emphasis on the mechanical over the magical. They had achieved by mechanical means what only a few of the most skilled mages could achieve after a lifetime of training and research. Manshoon was more than a little impressed. After having observed some of their other practices, their military training, their educational institutions, he was very impressed. They had ideas and traditions that he was going to institute into Zhentil Keep very soon. What was that Sunnydale expression? Ah, yes "keeping up with the Joneses."
This was going to be an interesting era in the history of Faerun.
The Slayer was happy. She was on the hunt. The world flew by her as she ran. She leapt over logs and boulders, and dove behind buildings. She could smell the prey. They prey bellowed and tromped over the place, not noticing her in the shadows. Foolish prey thought they were the hunters. Four of the hunched prey tried to kill a family of not-prey and she burst out from the shadows. She grabbed the head of the largest one and twisted. The prey fell to the ground lifeless. One kick knocked the next on its back. A punch broke the nose of the third. The fourth ran.
The Slayer smiled.
Hours later, the hunched prey were chased out of the city or unconscious or dead. The Slayer could sense new prey coming close. Lots of new prey. Slipping into the shadows, the Slayer hunted. It would not be long before the slayer reached the new prey. She felt a little something in the back of her mind. Buffy. That weakling. She-who-gave-up. Buffy tried to quit. Buffy the once dead.
The Slayer shook her head and hid behind a rock as the new prey tromped by. The Slayer waited for the perfect moment. When that moment came, the slayer picked its target and killed it with a twist of the neck. She slipped back into the hiding place, dragging the corpse with her. The other new prey didn't seem to notice. She did so again, choosing the weakest first, killing them silently in the darkness. Soon only the strong remained on the outskirts.
The Slayer was bored. With a burst of speed, she streaked from her hiding place and took a warrior prey out with a punch to the unprotected throat. She paused a moment so the others saw her and blazed away again, leading them on a chase. The chase led to a chasm along a stream. There were a good fifty of the new prey following her. When they thought her trapped, the Slayer bounced from rock to rock until she was out of the chasm. Once atop the ledge, she simply pushed a couple of boulders. The boulders caught others, crushing the new prey under the rubble. The Slayer ignored the moans of the survivors and went back for more.
"The other orcs?" Lieutenant Louise Gardner nodded once while Rupert Giles almost choked with surprise. Something was very wrong, very, very wrong. Buffy should not be that stupid. She also shouldn't be able to move so quickly. Giles looked to a very worried Willow and Xander.
"Auntie says you need to stop her." Everyone turned towards the sound of the voice. Sitting on a unconnected monitor, grinned a dirty, barefoot, dark elven little girl. Her rough smock was shredded and stained; her dirty, snow-white hair was a tangle of knots and mats. The only thing new or clean about her were a pair of pristine, bejeweled, white opera length gloves with looked stark against her ebony skin. In human years she looked about five years old and she spoke with a childish, singsong tone. "Auntie say it's a bad thing if Slayers are going loony."
A split second later, every person with a weapon had it trained on the girl. She ignored them completely, not even paying attention to anyone but Giles, Willow and Xander. "Auntie says Slayer will die if Slayer isn't stopped."
"How do we stop her?" Giles tried to stay calm, but the obviously unnatural appearance of the girl had shaken him. The girl simply grinned and shrugged.
"That's your problem! I just came 'cuz Auntie wanted me to."
"Mr. Giles, what is that thing and how did it get in here?" General Hennessey was not pleased.
"Col-rather General, I have no idea what or who she is without research," Giles responded without looking at the officer. The girl jumped down from her perch to look up at Willow.
"Auntie wants you to hold her," the girl said a moment before shoving a bare skull into the redhead's hands. Willow eeped, but held on, looking in fear at the obviously inhuman skull in her hands. The girl stood in front of Giles and Xander, pointing an accusatory finger at them both. "You think the Master was bad? You think what Angelus did was bad? Stupid, stupid! Uncontrolled Slayer working only on instinct like an animal? Hmmm…That's bad."
Back in Sunnydale, Drizzt leaned back as his chest heaved from exhaustion. His muscles burned after most of a month of limited use. He leaned back and rested his head on a rock.
"Drizzt, you okay?" Riley looked down at the dark elf while keeping his blaster trained on the captured tanarukks. The dark elf nodded.
"Forgive me, I am out of practice," Drizzt replied, closing his eyes. Forest's eyes practically burst out of his head at the news.
"Damn kid, I'd like to see what you're like when you're in practice," he said with a whistle. He glanced down at the pile of bodies. It was not small.
"Give me another couple of months and I'll show you," the young dark elf said with a smile.
"I really hope you just mean a demonstration," Forest said with a slight tinge of worry in his voice. Drizzt's grin widened. "You scare me, kid."
Graham dragged another tanarukk over to their pile of live critters. "That's 23 still alive from Drizzt's batch. We shot sixty-six unconscious from blasters and one with a cracked skull from bullet fire."
"Good work Team 3," said the radio. "ETA is 18 minutes before we can get a recovery team out to your location. Injuries?"
"Bruises, nothing too severe," Riley reported back. "We'll get checked out when we get back to base."
"See that you do," was the simple command. Riley sighed.
"Twenty minutes more," he said with a shake of his head. He glanced down at the black dull armor. "Drizzt, what's the armor made out of?"
"Adamantine I believe. It's one of the strongest metals known in the Underdark," Drizzt replied. He unbuckled his scabbard and threw the sword to the leader. Riley caught it and pulled the blade out. "My sword is made of it. It is incredible for them to have that much of it. Of course Hellgate Keep has its own resources."
"Hellgate Keep?" Graham gave him a worried look.
"It's the place these creatures were bred," Drizzt said as he propped himself up. "I don't know much beyond what I learned at the academy, but from what I heard, it was a city filled with humans, elves, gnomes and others. Something happened and demons took it over. The demons captured orcs and bred them with demons. Centuries later the tanarukks were their primary war force. They are well known in the Underdark. Even the drow avoid contact with them unless some machination requires it."
"This is a really freaky world, you know that, right?" Forest said with a bit of a glare. He glanced back at the pile and zapped one of the captives. "Sorry, it twitched."
"One Girl!?!"
Kaanyr Vhok punched the rock beside him. His face was a mask of rage. Before him was a team of his vrock scouts, ugly vulture demons. "You mean to tell me that all our advanced troops were killed by one girl?"
"Lord, there were others involved, but one blond girl was the-" the vrock's head whipped around as the cambion back handed him.
"I do not want to hear excuses. I want results," the cambion said as he choked the life out of the vulture demon. When the thing fell to the floor and vanished back to the lower planes where it belonged, the cambion looked up to the rest of his scouts. "Go, find her and kill her. I want her head here before me, Sunnydale in ruins at my feet and its people marched back to Ascalhorn. Do this, and I will not kill you."
"Yes, Kaanyr Vhok," the vrocks said, bowing and backing out of the chamber. The cambion lord glanced to the leader of the true demon forces.
"Go to the surface and attack their forces again. Take the rest of the tanarukk forces with you. Strike hard and fast," he said with a look of death. When they were gone, Kaanyr Vhok glanced down at his lover who still writhed beneath him. He smiled and went back to what he was doing before they were so rudely interrupted. "Aliisza, please forgive the interruption."
The Vrocks were noisy fliers. Their lumbering bodies and overly long wingspan made them sound like a flock of turkeys to a normal person. To the slayer, even with the orkish hoard chasing her, the five vrocks were horrible scouts, she knew where they were nearly ten minutes before they reached her. She maneuvered her two enemies into position by running up a large slab of rock with the orcs chasing her up. Leaping off, she put the orcs right in the way of the diving vulture demons, taking out five orcs and two vrocks in one go. It was only a moment before they charged after her once more.
The Slayer did not consider herself to be in danger. This was nothing compared to platoons of vampires which the Slayer had fought on several occasions. As centuries passed and the Slayer went from girl to girl, there was plenty of time for introspection, to review mistakes and plan accordingly. Diving behind a rock, a second group of orcs took the brunt of the flying demons' attacks. This time, the orcs fought back. One unlucky vrock was pummeled to death by primitive clubs and axes.
The remaining four vrocks had learned better. Flying up to a ledge out of reach, three of the vrocks joined hands and started to dance around in a circle. One of the orcs, a shaman by the look of him, saw this with a look of horror. He bellowed to his companions and they started to run away. But it was too late. Not even half a minute after they began dancing, a deadly shock wave of energy flew out from them. Everything within a hundred feet died.
The Slayer had been lucky. She had hid just outside the range of the blast. She leapt out, seeking a better stretch of ground to fight on, but the fourth vrock had been waiting in the sky. The moment it spotted her, the demon dove at her, the force of the impact knocking the Slayer to the ground. As she pulled her fist back to punch it in the face, the vulture demon screeched at the top of its lungs, letting out a noise that shook the Slayer to the bones. Momentarily stunned, the Slayer was unable to fight off the subsequent claws at her abdomen, opening up huge gashes that stained the ground with blood. The pain shook her out of the stunned state and she folded up and kicked as hard as she could into the vrock's chest, knocking it backwards and breaking a few of its ribs. Holding in her intestines, the Slayer ran away from the battlefield to find a hole to hide in.
The Vrocks were not pleased to loose their target. They muttered to each other in their infernal tongue for a moment before splitting up to hunt down the creature that had been such a thorn in their sides. It was not long before they spotted the trail of blood along the ground. Squawking once, they prepared to climb into the hole to pull out the thorn in their sides.
The hole ended up being much smaller than expected and the Slayer was just out of reach. Two flew off to report their success to Kaanyr Vhok while the other two stayed to prevent the girl from escaping. Unfortunately they were so focused on the cave's occupant that they never noticed the orcs sneaking up behind them. With the Slayer vanished, the vrocks became the biggest threat to the orcs.
With a howl of rage, the orcs fell on the waiting vrocks with steel and muscle. The demons were brought low, chopped into a pile of pieces that quickly vanished. The threat gone, the orcs quickly jogged back to their people.
Deep below the city of Sunnydale, the rest of Hellgate Keep's demon forces marched toward the tunnels that connected to the sewer system and then up to the dry tunnels above. They thought they were invulnerable, unstoppable. However they were ignorant of current events on the surface. The Zhentarim was one of the greatest criminal and military organizations in the Realms. They were on par with the Harpers' agents and had their own people in almost every city in Faerun. Though they were not nearly as powerful as the Red Wizards of Thay or the Seven Sisters or the Knights of Myth Drannor, Manshoon had raised them to work together perfectly, keeping their political backstabbing out of the field and in the shadows of Zhentil Keep where it belonged. The Zhentarim were an organized group that, when all pieces were put together, worked like a well oiled machine. Benito Mussolini would have been impressed with their organization.
Peris's reconnaissance team was one of many in the organization. They had specialists in their own fields: stealth, martial ability, assassination, divine piety and arcane mastery. Every team was perfectly balanced between each field. In recent years there had been an increase in Banites in the teams, but Peris had specifically not included any: he did not trust the Church of Bane. Peris himself was a follower of Mask, the god of thieves, shadows and intrigue. He had chosen others with similar allegiances so there would be no conflicting goals.
When the Black Cloaks and the legion from the Citadel of the Raven had arrived, he had dealt with the other leader quickly, and they had decided he would be in control of the combined forces. After a brief planning session, he and the tiefling had planned their attack.
"We go in silently, stealth in front will identify the demons and our fighters will keep them occupied while our mages banish them. You are not to harm any humans you might find," Peris ordered to the assembled forces. "Lord Manshoon wants this done quietly and cleanly. He will be most displeased if his plans are upset."
"Allow me to make it perfectly clear that if some incident occurs, I will personally inform Lord Manshoon of the offender," the tiefling put in, reinforcing the order. It was hard to believe, but the forces actually did stand straighter. The idea of being personally on Lord Manshoon's bad side was a nightmare none of them wished to live. "No one is to enter Sunnydale until we are invited. Is that clear?" The sound of a legion saluting in unison was deafening in the small cavern.
"Good," said Peris with a dark smile. "Now let's go put Sunnydale in debt to the Zhentarim."
They marched out in spheres of silence, the stealthiest on point. The first guards, a couple of tanarukks, never even knew what hit them. The demon spawned orcs were dead before they hit the ground. The small army marched forward until it encountered its first true demons. Still surrounded by spells of silence, the fighters streaked forward and kept the three glabrezu occupied while the mages behind the silence spells cast in safety. Only a few seconds later, the tanar'ri were gone and the army continued on to the next target.
Hours later, the army had taken out a massive number of demons large and small (though a few mages had secreted a few lesser demons back to their labs to be used as familiars). And, true to their orders, they had not stepped into Sunnydale. It was time for them to head to the surface and destroy the rest of Hellgate Keep's forces.
It was not an easy job. There were some passageways, but they were so limited that only two people could walk side by side. This created a very dangerous situation to anyone heading out first. As a team, the Zhentarim were organized and deadly, separated, they were easily killed. The goal was to have the Black Cloaks, the arcane arm of the Zhentarim, go forward under invisibility spells and open a gate to allow the rest of the army to march quickly to the surface. It was a good plan. It would have worked perfectly if things had gone right.
Things had not gone right. A medium level wizard had been resting in a dark corner in one of the larger rooms. Out of the shadows two arms reached out and pulled him into the stone. A moment later Aliisza walked out of the shadows wearing his appearance. She had worked beside them, pretending to help and doing a very good job at pretending. Finally, she was chosen to help make the portal. As soon as they were out of sight she dropped the disguise and clawed out the other wizard's throat. She then flew to the surface where her lover waited.
"It's done. Here's the body," she said, dumping the body of the Black Cloak at their feet. "You never told me that they were in league with the Zhentarim."
"I didn't know," replied Kaanyr Vhok with an innocent shrug. He dragged her into a deep kiss. After several moments they broke contact and gasped for air. The cambion turned to a demon lieutenant and grinned. "Gather our forces here. Instead of them marching out, we'll march in and kill them."
The demon (neither half-fiend was quite sure of the type as there was a great deal of demonic cross breeding in Hellgate Keep) gave something of a salute, before calling to its brethren. After a short wait, in keeping with the amount of time it should have taken the two mages to march to the surface, Aliisza cast her spell, opening up the Portal. After a short moment, the first of the Zhent troops marched through and were promptly slaughtered.
It was brutal. These were not the one or two demons the troops had faced before, but the collected surviving forces of the Scoured Legion. Soon, greater demons were charging into the portal three at a time. Every so often a portion of a Zhent warrior would be tossed back through, much to the delight of the fiends waiting to charge through the Portal.
"We're being slaughtered!" Peris said, snarling as he threw another of his many daggers at a nearby demon. He looked back to the tiefling. "Get us out of here!"
Franticly, the fiendish Black Cloak muttered the words of a spell before commanding those closest to him to link arms. A nasty blast of energy hit from a trio of dancing vrocks a split second before the spell took them away, back to the surface outside Sunnydale. The tiefling was unfamiliar with the area and the teleport spell misfired, sending them miles from their destination. Heavily wounded, the Zhentarim agents, 26 in all, fell unconscious on the ground outside the University of Sunnydale.
In the cave to the south, the Slayer was fading between consciousness and near death. She was healing, but she had lost far too much blood. In the pain, Buffy fluttered back into control. She smiled grimly. After everything, she was going to die in another cave alone, but this time there would be no one to come and save her. Xander and CPR couldn't save her from this.
Absently, as she coughed up blood, she pondered what had happened when the Slayer took over. It had started with just the briefest of thoughts: "What if I can't do this?" And that had been enough. The Slayer was so much stronger here. She had known the Slayer, the embodiment of the power with in her, the Chosen power, for almost three years at this point. But it had always been in the background until she died. Immediately afterwards she had become stronger than before and it had just kept going. She killed the master. She had defeated Spike and Drusilla the first time the caused trouble. She had stopped Angelus from destroying the world. She had protected Sunnydale from a dragon. And now what? She was going to die in a cave with no one the wiser.
She held her stomach so her guts would stay on the inside. The Slayer healing was kicking in, but Buffy doubted it would work in time. She would need water to help replace the blood, but she had no clue where to find it. She probably needed stitches too. She was still bleeding.
The orcs were outside too. Orcs with families. They didn't have many warriors there. There were children and women and old people. And most of them were injured. They had burns and claw marks. The Slayer didn't care, but Buffy did. She had killed children, and fathers and mothers. Buffy struggled to stay awake. She had killed children. It mattered little that she was out of control at the time. She had done it. Her.
The demons had killed far too many before she had stopped them. She only hoped the Initiative and the others had been in time. Buffy wasn't sure if the tanarukks were actually killed, or if she had just knocked them out. If they woke up before…she could not let herself think about it. She was already a murderer as it was. She propped herself up a little more, wincing as the pain seared through her. Her wound, almost closed in her previous position, opened back up.
This time, the pain was too much and she faded away again. She dreamt of the history of the slayers, from the First Slayer to the one before her and then to Kendra. She delved into the minds of her previous incarnations. As time went on, she learned bit here and there of each of them, but the memories were scattered, unfocused. They had no order, no sense of time or delineation. She learned a few swear words in Chinese and then she dreamt about how to build a ballista. She occasionally would wake into a semi-conscious state and got a vague impression of someone in red bending over her and then she was back in the dream world, as lost as ever. She then spent a few years learning Greek before her dreams swept her towards longbow practice in Wales. She spent some time learning jujitsu and Bushido as she pretended to be a man during the Edo period. Then she remembered fighting Spike on a subway and him killing her. She saw first hand what it felt like to be killed by Drusilla as she watched the end of Kendra from the dead slayer's point of view. "Sleep, you'll be fine now," Buffy heard from somewhere. She didn't recognize the voice, but she obeyed. She went back to the memories. She learned how to make a quick atlatl from a fresh kill and hunt vampires by day in places where not many people lived. The dreams went on…