To the Power Born: A Tale of the Slayers
Part 22: How Many Enemies?
Interlude: A Place Not Real
Mi Kyong knew she was dreaming, because she was walking through a wood she'd never seen before, a wood absolutely teeming with pseudo dragons, each of whom greeted her and called her by name. Pseudo dragons in more colors than she'd ever known existed flew around in this forested place, calling to her, calling to Fog, who rode on her shoulder, telling them both not to worry— that scary things were coming, but they were only dreams.
*By confronting these things now, in dreams,* said a familiar mental voice, though one she'd not heard in years, *you make it possible to confront them with less fear when they must be faced in the waking world. Do you understand, Little Flower?*
Mi Kyong looked up to a low branch a foot or so above her head, and some ten feet in front of her, saw the pale yellow pseudo dragon perched there, and held out her arms. The dragon dropped from the tree, glided over and landed in her arms, stretched up to rub her head against Fog's.
"Awai," Mi Kyong said softly. "I have not seen you in years, since I left Japan— is it because you and yours are telepathic that you are all in my dream?"
*You have chosen wisely, little dragon,* Awai, the first pseudo dragon Mi Kyong had ever known personally, said to Fog. *She thinks clearly even in a place where clear thinking is not the rule of the day.
*But I have always loved Mi Kyong— so I may be biased.*
"I love you, too," Mi Kyong said. "Is Mr. Nakamura well, Awai?"
*He is well,* Awai said. *His new garden flourishes, even without his favorite helper.*
"It is good," Mi Kyong said. She went back over the things the pseudo dragons had told her, thought about what she knew about the gifts of the Slayer, and said, "Is this a Slayer dream, then? Am I to see something about things yet to come?"
*Yes, and about things that have happened already as well,* Awai told her. *I am not your guide here— I and my friends only came to make sure that you would not be frightened— and to tell you that you may trust he who guides you, though you will not know him. He has made it his job to protect Slayers, to help them, from his afterlife— and it says much about his character that he considers this a reward. You may come to recognize him, you may not— but you may trust him, Little Flower. On this you have the word of all my kind.*
"All right," Mi Kyong said. "Given all that has happened of late, I thank you— I might have been worried.
"So where is my guide?"
"I'm over this way, lass," called a man's voice from ahead and off to Mi Kyong's right. "Take the path to your right, an' you'll come to me."
Awai head-bumped Mi Kyong's chin, rubbed her cheek against Fog's, and said, *I may go no further, Little Flower. Go well, learn well— and I will tell my Hideo that you remember him. He will be pleased.*
"Thank you, Awai," Mi Kyong said. "Goodbye."
The pale yellow pseudo dragon flapped off, going back up the trail— and Mi Kyong took the path to the right. Not far down it, she came on a man standing in a small clearing, visibly basking in the sunlight at it's middle. He didn't look terribly tall, but he seemed very muscular. His short, neatly combed hair burned red on his head, and his grin seemed both merry and a little devilish.
"There you are, young ladies," the man said, reaching out to stroke Fog's head. "An' well it is to have you here, for there is a bit of information that all have missed— an' that right bastard Warren plans to use it to kill a great many people, Mi Kyong, by puttin' a surprise on all of you after you think him long gone.
"Oh— and you can call me Michael, lass— it's a pleasure to meet you so."
Mi Kyong blinked, and thought for a moment— then smiled. "You're Rose's father, aren't you?"
"That I am," Michael said, grinning at her before turning and starting down a path through the woods. "You've read her book an' remembered well then, my dear."
"Not just that," Mi Kyong said. "Though that too, yes— but Michael, your grandson looks very much like a smaller you."
"Well, now that's a pleasure to hear, an' I thank you," Michael said. He smiled more widely and added, "That Rose would honor me so, giving young Michael my own name in full, and Ballard would allow it so readily, not insisting that his son bear his name— Powers, but I wish I could have met that man while I was alive! My Emerald Rose chose well, she did."
"I love him," Mi Kyong said. "He's very sweet, and so is Rose— I love all their family, biological and otherwise.
"And… you may have heard this before, but you may not— Michael the second has said that he wants to grow up to be a Watcher— but only if he can't be a fireman."
The ghost of Rose's father, who had been a fireman himself, died working that job to save a life, froze in his tracks. He looked back at Mi Kyong, tears starting to spill from his eyes, and said in a voice thick with the Irish accent that had been faint a moment before, "I dinna know that, lass— an' thank ye I must for tellin' me so. Ye've given me a gift, dear one, an' I do thank ye for it. To know that Ireland's Flower has honored my memory by tellin' her boy enough about me to have him wishin' to follow in m'footsteps… I'll owe you for the whole of my existence, Mi Kyong, an' no mistake."
"You have spent your afterlife watching over Slayers, and I am a Slayer," Mi Kyong said, smiling at him. "No debt is allowed— we cancel each other's obligations."
Michael laughed, shook his head, and said, "You argue almost as well as my one, you do. We'll settle this some other time, then— for I still feel I owe you.
"Now, my dear… what you're here to see is about to begin. I can tell you little about this first bit, only show you and hope you understand. One thing I can say— note well those things that seem not to belong. Note them very well!"
"As you say," Mi Kyong said. "So… show me what I must see, Michael, please."
Michael nodded and stepped down the path, through an arch of trees, Mi Kyong close on his heels. Instantly, they were at an airport, outside on the tarmac near an airplane, a big passenger jet. Mi Kyong saw Warren, the new Warren, looking like that very handsome actor, drive up on a cart pulling a luggage train. Oddly, on the side of the luggage train, she could see four clocks, digital clocks with glowing numbers, each labeled with a plain block-printed label in English under it. One said "Tokyo, Japan," the next "Florence, Italy," the third "Denver, CO, USA," the last "Seattle, WA, USA." The times on the clocks were all in sync, if you remembered to add and subtract for time zones, and the one for Seattle had numbers that glowed red, not green like the others.
Mi Kyong watched as Warren loaded the luggage into the baggage hold, then slipped a small metal box from a pocket, aimed it at some sort of sensor in the frame of the doors to the baggage hold, held it carefully focused on the sensor while he carefully passed in one last piece of luggage, a small suitcase with metal sides, in the hold and gave it a single shove, sending it back to wedge itself in a corner of the baggage hold between two struts, far away from the sensor. Then he lowered the box, smirked, and took the driver's seat of the cart again to drive away.
"That was the bomb," Mi Kyong said. "The bomb meant to kill Nancy. I remember, she came from Seattle. The device he held— it must have jammed the chemical sensor that detects explosives?"
"Aye, that it did," Michael said. "But you've more to see, lass."
The scene shifted to another airport, another airplane, and Warren again approaching, this time driving a small pickup truck with Japanese characters proclaiming it to be from the aircraft maintenance department of Tokyo's major airport on its door. Warren got out, went to the side of the truck, and opened the toolbox mounted in its side. On the bottom of the lid, Mi Kyong again saw the line of digital clocks, each labeled as before, and this time, both the Tokyo and Seattle clocks glowed red. Mi Kyong looked at the clocks, noted something odd and frowned, but said nothing as Warren took a canister labeled "Hydraulic Fluid, Aviation Grade" from the truck and went aboard the plane.
Warren did something to a hydraulic system on the plane, bled off some fluid, checked with a gauge, bled off a little more, then replaced it, not from the canister he'd carried aboard, but from an aerosol can he produced from a pocket on his overalls. He grinned as he put the can back in his pocket and said softly, "Twenty thousand feet, and boom! I'm a genius."
He left, and the scene shifted again. Mi Kyong saw Warren, again in a maintenance worker's uniform, loading boxes of microwave-ready meals aboard a plane, putting them in the galley of the luxury aircraft. He waited until no one was around to see, then opened the freezer where the meals were stored again— and this time, the clocks showed up on the freezer door, the one labeled "Florence, Italy" now glowing red along with those for Tokyo and Seattle, and she knew that she was watching Warren sabotage the plane Andrew had been meant to take. Again, she noted the clocks, frowned, but said nothing.
Warren pulled a couple of the meals from the rack at the very top of the freezer out, took one out from the bottom of his carrying cart, pulled a small piece of bright red tape that had marked it off, and slid it in the top rack at the back of the freezer.
"Nuke this, you little shit!" Warren muttered as he packed to leave. "Talk about your spicy Italian food!"
That scene dissolved, and what faded back in was a mountaintop, and Mi Kyong watched as Warren flew up to a small rock shelf on the mountain side, flying by means of a jet pack of some sort that he wore on his back. He landed, set down the large bundle of cloth that he carried, unwrapped the missile and launcher within. This time the clocks Mi Kyong knew to look for seemed to be on the side of the missile, and all four glowed red.
She watched Warren set up the rocket, and when he stood, he said, "There you go— that should make my partner happy. So long, Angel."
He jetted away, and the smoke from his exhaust obscured Mi Kyong's vision for a moment. When it cleared, the scene had changed again, and Mi Kyong found herself looking at the living room of Giles's mansion, filled with people and pseudo dragons, the humans discussing an attack on some sort of monsters' lair. The scene zoomed slowly to the mantle of the fireplace, and on the corner of the mantle, Mi Kyong saw a fly, an ordinary housefly. The eye of the vision moved closer to the fly— and Mi Kyong saw that it had no veins in its wings, and that something else wasn't right. Closer still— and she saw the eyes of the insect, and that they were not the faceted eyes she should have seen. Instead, they seemed to be camera lenses….
Things shifted, and Mi Kyong saw Elaine, her aunt-by-emotion, dancing among the stars. Tears poured down Elaine's cheeks as she danced, a new and different dance that had elements of Souls, Like Scattered Stars in it— and that Elaine's dance centered around two stars close together in the sky. Mi Kyong looked closely at the stars— and cried out in fear.
"No!" Mi Kyong cried. "No it cannot be, I will not allow it!"
"It could happen," Elaine said, still dancing. "It could happen, Mi Kyong. Everything rides on Jocelyn getting past two hurts, one she feels now… and one she will feel soon."
Mi Kyong stared in dread as Elaine continued dancing around the two stars at the center of her dance-space, one the gold-white of Colin's stellar-based powers and the other… the other the precise shade of violet of Jocelyn's eyes.
"Jocelyn must not reject the dark, Mi Kyong," Elaine said. "She must not! Her hurt will make her… more stubborn than usual. Yet you can make her see, you can show her— because you have seen. You have seen the flight, and the flight is forever.
"When Jocelyn rejects the dark, you must make her see the flight."
The starlit black of space faded away, and Mi Kyong saw a young man, short and pudgy, dark haired and dark eyed, sitting in a workshop of some sort. Before him on a bench lay the Scythe, the Scythe that had given Mi Kyong power, and in doing so, given her a new life.
"It's supposed to be forever," the young man said, his voice slightly nasal. "I mean— the Guardians, they made it to be forever, to always empower and protect. Thing is, they couldn't plan for everything— nobody can. Warren, he's gonna try to break it. He may do it. If he breaks it, it's all over. So you make sure that Jocelyn accepts the dark, because if she doesn't, her pain will blind her. She can see the answer— if she's not too hurt. If she doesn't accept the dark, she won't see. She has to have the dark to see the light.
"Remember that. And remember that the answer sucks."
"I'll… I'll remember." Mi Kyong shook herself, said, "I will remember."
"Okay," the pudgy young man said. "Hey… do me a favor?"
"If I can, I will," Mi Kyong said. "You are helping us, I will help you if I can."
"Thanks," the young man said. "Just… tell Andrew it's okay. Tell him that… that Jonathan did an Anakin in the end. He'll understand. And you'll know when to say it."
"I will tell him." Mi Kyong looked around, saw the scene fading. "Is it over?"
"Almost," Michael said from behind her. "A little more left to see, Mi Kyong."
She turned around to see Michael standing next to an open door. Through the door, Mi Kyong could see a big TV, and a blond woman sitting in front of it, watching what Jocelyn and Vincent moving through the prison camp where Mi Kyong had been held, moving to rescue her, and eating popcorn. The woman looked over her shoulder as Mi Kyong stepped through the door, and Mi Kyong saw that the woman was gorgeous, fine-boned, with dark blue-gray eyes and a small, smiling mouth over a slightly pointed chin.
"Hello, sweetness," the woman said. "I'm all right, now. I used to be all broken, but my new friend made me all right. I see things, still, see things about the future, and while I may not see them as often as I used to, I see them much more clearly. And I can think about them, really think. Isn't that lovely?"
"I… yes, I suppose it is," Mi Kyong said. "Who are you? Do I know you?"
"We've never met," the woman said. She looked thoughtful. "That's probably a good thing, because you'd have to try to kill me. It's in your blood, you know. Now, at least. So we don't have to meet."
"You're a vampire?" Mi Kyong asked, not afraid, just trying to get all the information she could.
"Yes, I am," the woman said, sounding proud and happy. "I'm a vampire. I see things. And I'm not crazy now, I can think. Mostly, I think about killing the one who went back. Sometimes, I think about killing the one who broke my favorite toy, but mostly, I think about killing the one who went back.
"Isn't that lovely?"
Before Mi Kyong could even think of an answer, the door swung shut, and Michael said, "One last thing to see, Mi Kyong, then you can return. When you wake, you won't remember everything, I dinna think— but you'll remember the right things in the right order, when the time comes."
Mi Kyong turned to face Michael, saw a platoon of soldiers wearing START uniforms and equipment. Jocelyn's friend Graham Miller stood at attention at the front of the group, facing away from them— and Mi Kyong watched, something man-shaped, dark and hard to see began moving through the ranks of soldiers, hiding behind first one, then another. Finally, it reached the front ranks and hid behind the soldier who stood directly behind Graham. Even as Mi Kyong opened her mouth to call a warning, the dark thing leaped at Graham, bore him to the ground, and drove a hand, now gleaming and metallic instead of dark, through the back of the colonel's neck, separating his head from his body.
"That is a real danger," Michael said. "But like all the other dangers here that ye've seen and understood, this one can be averted."
"Is there something I have not seen, not understood?" MI Kyong asked sharply.
Michael looked uncomfortable, but said slowly, "More like something ye've heard and not had a way to understand, not yet, my girl. But… some things cannot be stopped. Or if they could, they shouldn't, for stopping some bad things only assures that worse things are more sure to happen.
"Some pains, some losses, cannot be escaped. Sometimes, lass, we can only stand an' watch while those we love are hurt, an' try to help them see past the pain, see the next thing that could bring joy— if they would simply let it.
"It's a hard thing— but no life is without pain, Mi Kyong.
"Now— I think it's time for ye t'wake. But there's a thing I'd ask of ye, as I asked it of Rose's Dancer long ago."
Michael stepped closer, put the first two fingers of his right hand under Mi Kyong's chin, tilted her head up gently, and kissed her forehead softly.
"Pass that to my Emerald Rose, if ye would," Michael said, smiling. "Just as I gave to you, so that she knows where it came from— and tell her that I'm forever grateful that she's told her son about his grandfather."
"I will," Mi Kyong said. "I promise."
"Thank you, lass. Do as you can with what you've been given."
Jocelyn:
I woke up to Mi Kyong standing in my open bedroom door, looking like she wanted to knock, but didn't want to wake us.
"Morning, Mi Kyong," I said, waving at her as Colin called his own good morning from behind me.
"Good morning," Mi Kyong said. She looked sort of out of it for a moment, then her shook her head and said, "I had a Slayer dream. And…. Yes. The clocks. They mean everything."
"Huh?" Colin said. "What clocks, Mi Kyong? What are you—"
"I had a dream," Mi Kyong repeated. "A Slayer dream. I must… I need to tell everyone. I know that the clocks were the key, that much is obvious, but I do not understand what they meant."
"Oh, boy," I said, sitting up. "Is it super urgent? You want us to go down with you now? Or can we shower first?"
"Showering will be fine," Mi Kyong said. She blushed a little as I climbed out of bed and she got an eyeful of a nude Colin. "But I think I should tell everyone as soon as I can after. It is important, I know it— I just… don't know why."
Mi Kyong sat on my balcony while Colin and I showered together quickly (dammit!), then went down to the kitchen with us, joined the rest of the family in heading for Giles's mansion for breakfast. As soon as we were there, all in the kitchen, Dad and Xander working together to make breakfast, Mi Kyong looked around and asked, "Where is Aunt Rose?"
"She'll be along in a minute," Uncle Ballard said. "She did some sword forms before breakfast, went to shower. Is everything all right?"
"I think that it will be," Mi Kyong said. "I… had a Slayer dream, and I have something to say to Aunt Rose before I tell everyone about it."
"Say what to me?" Aunt Rose said, strolling into the kitchen and kissing Aunt Dawn, who was closest. "What did I miss?"
"I had a Slayer dream last night, Aunt Rose," Mi Kyong said, moving to stand before her. "And at the end, I was given a message for you."
With that, Mi Kyong, actually shorter than Aunt Rose (and not many can say that) moved to kneel on the chair Aunt Rose had been about to sit on and went up on her knees so that she was actually a little taller than Rose. Then she put the first two fingers of her right hand under Aunt Rose's chin, tilted her face up a little, and kissed her on the forehead, very gently.
Aunt Rose's face lit up even as her eyes filled with happy tears, and she said, "Daddy? He's still guiding Slayers?"
"He is," Mi Kyong said, smiling. "He sent you that, and asked that I tell you that he is grateful always that you have told your son of his grandfather.
"Also… Uncle Ballard, that you let Aunt Rose give your son her father's name in full, this pleases him, and he wishes that he could have met you."
"Wow," Uncle Ballard said, looking tickled. "That's— wow. Thanks."
"Thanks tons, Mi Kyong," Aunt Rose said, and kissed her cheek. "Now— can the rest wait until after breakfast?" She looked significantly at the younger kids, and Mi Kyong got it— no need to disturb them if it could be avoided.
"Yes, it can wait that long," Mi Kyong said. "Right after breakfast, though, I should tell you… the bit I remember. I know that there was more, but…."
"You'll remember the rest when you need to," Aunt Elaine said. "Trust me, I know."
"All right," Mi Kyong said, and sat down to eat.
After breakfast, all of us full-on Slayers (they still counted me, despite my freakiness, and I felt really grateful for that) and all the Watchers and Guardians went to the library, and Mi Kyong told us what she remembered.
"I saw Warren placing the bombs aboard the planes that Nancy and Andrew were meant to take to New York," Mi Kyong said. "The one aboard Nancy's plane was in a suitcase, the one aboard Andrew's in a… a meal meant for the microwave, which I think was to trigger it."
"Yes, that's correct," Giles said, looking impressed. He'd never told us what sort of devices had been found aboard the various planes. "I don't suppose that you saw what he put aboard the plane that Brian was meant to be on? The airline can't find a thing, and they are going rather insane with trying."
"I… yes," Mi Kyong said, her eyes going distant as she remembered. "He did something with the hydraulic fluid for the flaps and other controls. He said… he said, 'Twenty thousand feet and boom.' Then the scene switched."
"All right," Giles said. "Do hold on a moment, please, dear— I think I should call the airline and tell them before they decide that it was a false alarm and put that plane back into service."
Giles made the call quickly, spoke in rapid-fire Japanese for a minute or two, then hung up and said, "Please, continue, Mi Kyong."
She told of seeing Warren arrive by jetpack on the ledge where he'd set the rocket to destroy Angel and Faith's plane, and of how Warren had said that the act should make his partner happy.
"That explains the attack on them, then," Xander said. He gave me a grin and said, "See, I told you it was just something we didn't know, not you missing something."
"All right, Mi Kyong," Giles said. "This is useful information, certainly— but by your face, I can see that there is more."
"Yes, Giles," Mi Kyong said. "As I watched every scene, I saw clocks in strange places— on the luggage cart Warren drove, on the tool box of the truck he drove, on the freezer for the meals aboard the plane, and on the side of the missile he set to kill Angel and Faith. Four clocks, one set to each time zone he worked in.
"But… Giles, the clocks all read within a couple of minutes of each other— even overlapped some. It… it's as though he can hop through time to be in more than one place at a time."
"Dear lord, I hope that isn't the case!" Giles said. "I think you'd better describe the whole thing over again, Mi Kyong, from start to finish, and we will not interrupt. Recall the times on the clocks as best you can, please."
Mi Kyong went over it again, and we listened. I strained for an answer other than that Warren could move through time, but couldn't find anything. Fortunately, somebody else saw the truth. (Not like it was a lot better, but if we'd prepared for the wrong thing, it could have been disastrous.)
We talked it over for a minute, trying to figure out who to ask if time travel could be actually possible, when Uncle Ballard got a sort of "eureka!" look on his face. I saw it, and so did Aunt Sh'rin, but the others missed it.
Uncle Ballard stood up, still wearing his "I've got something" expression, and walked away from the big conference table and over to one of the smaller ones that had several computers on it, there for students who didn't have one of their own to use. He ran his hands across them for a moment, going from drive tower to drive tower, then reaching behind and tracing the cables that networked them together.
"Oh, shit," he said, straightening and moving back to the conference table. "Folks, I think we're barking up the wrong tree. Not that I like the looks of the right tree any better, but… well, okay, yes I do. Time traveling evil genius robots are maybe actually worse than what I think we're dealing with, here."
"What have you got, Ballard?" Daddy asked.
"We're forgetting the key point, here," Uncle Ballard said. "Warren is not human. He's a robot."
"Yes, but what's that got to do with him being in several places at once?" Giles asked.
"Everything," Uncle Ballard said. "Giles, what exactly is there to prevent him from making more bodies for himself— then duplicating the program that is him into those bodies?"
We all went absolutely silent as the implications of Uncle Ballard's question sank into us.
More than one Warren. How many? Just the four Mi Kyong had seen? A dozen? Dozens?
Hundreds?
Thousands!?
"Oh, shit," Willow said.
"Yes," Giles said. He looked shaken by the realization. "Yes, I do believe that sums things up quite nicely."
For a long moment, no one said anything. Then Kelly pulled herself together and said, "All right— Mi Kyong, is there anything else you remember right now?"
"One other thing," Mi Kyong said. "I remember a woman, a vampire— blond, young, pretty, very pretty— watching TV, a TV showing Jocelyn and Vincent on their way to rescue me. She spoke to me, said… said she saw things, still, but… not as often as she used to see them. But now she could make sense of them, she couldn't before, but her new friend had… had fixed her. She used to be broken, but he'd fixed her.
"She said… she could think now, and mostly she thought about killing. Killing… 'the one who went back,' and… and the one who broke her favorite toy."
"Oh, hell," Buffy said. "Not my year, I guess."
"Buffy?" Giles said. "What have you deduced?"
"Just a minute, Giles," Buffy said. She leaned over and whispered in Aunt Dawn's ear, and Aunt Dawn winced, then said, "Yeah, I can do that. Give me a couple."
She opened up her laptop computer, booted it and started doing something. While she worked, Buffy said, "Was there anything else that you remember now, Mi Kyong?"
Mi Kyong looked thoughtful, then frustrated. "No. No, I know there was more— but I can't remember it, not right now."
"Don't stress it," Buffy said. "You'll remember when you need to— it happens like that, usually."
"Done," Aunt Dawn said. She spun her laptop around towards us, so Mi Kyong could see it, and said, "Is this the vampire woman you saw, Mi Kyong?"
"Yes, that's her," Mi Kyong said, sounding perfectly sure. "Her hair was a little… brighter than that, but that's her."
"Oh, balls," Xander said.
I couldn't argue. Aunt Dawn had found a picture of Drusilla, a long-time pain in the Scooby Gang's collective ass, and used a photo-manipulation program to give her blond hair.
"Warren went and made Drusilla sane," Buffy said. "I hate to admit it, but the idea of a sane Drusilla is actually worse than the idea of talking-to-the-junebugs-listening-to-flowers Dru.
"Also explains Warren's intel. Dru's visions were always powerful. Get rid of the wacko-filter, and she'd be able to help him a lot."
"Bloody hell," Giles sighed. "You're quite right, Buffy— this is not our year."
At that moment, the newbies, who'd been out in the back yard working out with Lydia, screamed, almost with one voice— and all hell broke loose.