To the Power Born: A Tale of the Slayers
Part 23: …But Enemies Accumulate
Right after we figured out that Warren probably had a lot of robotic bodies, and that he'd cured the insanity of Drusilla, a pain in the ass vampire with occasional prophetic visions, the newbies, training under Lydia outside, all pretty much screamed at once.
I was the second one out the door of the study, right on Buffy's heels, though Aunt Rose passed me as we went to the back door of Scooby Mansion, and Aunt Elaine was right on my heels. Mom and Gwen were right on her heels, and then the not-Slayer types came behind them, Uncle Ballard in front, moving in that ground-eating lope of his.
We got outside, saw most of the girls gathered in a circle, Lydia among them. Through the forest of bodies, we could see a man holding a girl around the neck— and a single girl on the ground, dead or dying, as there was a lot of blood around her.
"MOVE!" Buffy yelled, and the circle opened for her. She went straight in— and froze, as did all of us behind her, even as our pseudo dragons all started flying in a slow circle above the circle of girls, watching and waiting for a chance to do something useful.
Warren, in his Jared-Leto-looking body, stood in the center of the circle, his arm around Joyce's neck, a gun pressed to her temple.
"Hey, Buffy," Warren said. "Long time no see. How've you been?"
"Let her go, Warren," Buffy said.
Those of us with her started fanning out around him, going where Buffy's fingers, moving subtly, indicated we should go. I went to Warren's right, my left— but before I did, Mom slipped a couple of round things in the back pockets of my denim shorts, and I knew from size, shape and weight that she'd slipped me a pair of crazy-discs, some of my favorite weapons.
"Let her go?" Warren said, disbelief dripping from his voice. "What, so you can kill me? No, no— not gonna work like that, Buffy."
"I'm going to kill you anyway," Buffy said, even as Aunt Sh'rin and Aunt Dawn started working on the wounded Slayer, an Indian girl named Kalyani. They were within twenty feet of Warren, but they just… completely ignored him. Buffy glanced at them, looked up at Warren and said, "I'd kill you for threatening my daughter, Warren. Add in that you killed my son and hurt one of my Slayers? I almost wish I was the type to torture you. And, okay, how do you torture a robot?"
"Well, you could make me stand around and listen to you whine some more, that's torturous, believe me," Warren said. Almost as an afterthought, he added, "Bitch."
"So what is it that you think is going to happen next, Warren?" Buffy asked.
"Pretty simple, really," Warren said. "You're all going to let me out of here, and I'm going to take your daughter away with me. I'll examine her, get certain information that I need from her, and then I'll let her go.
"So— let's get started."
"Not happening," Buffy said. "Sorry."
"So?" Warren pushed the gun more tightly against Joyce's temple and said, "I'll kill her now, you and your little band of losers can try to kill me before I escape— and I'll kill more of you.
"Now let me walk out of here, you stupid bitch!"
"I can't do that," Buffy said. "Sorry, but you've got too much to answer for."
"I will kill your only remaining child right in front of you, you useless slut!" Warren nearly screamed. "LET ME LEAVE!"
*It's done, Buffy, ladies,* Willow said in all our heads— and I knew that, while Buffy had kept Warren distracted, Wil had done something to mess him up. *That gun he's holding is pretty much a not-real-effective club, as of now.*
"Screw you," Buffy said, her voice calm and clear. "Joyce? Come here, please."
Joyce smiled— Wil must have included her in that telepathic sending— caught the arm Warren had around her neck, pushed it away (straining a little, but not too much), grinned almost viciously as his gun made clicking noises while he tried repeatedly to fire it, and ducked under his arm. She walked casually over to Buffy, who hugged her before passing her back to Xander.
"Willow!" Warren said in realization. "God-damned dyke! You stupid loser bitch! You did this!"
"Uh-huh," Willow agreed brightly, stepping up beside Buffy as Sh'rin and Dawn gently carried a now-stabilized Kalyani out of the circle. "You remember my girlfriend, Tara? You don't remember killing her, I know that— but you do remember her, right?
"Well… I'm not going to do anything to you for killing her— past making it possible for the other people you've hurt to give you a big ol' helping of hurt themselves.
"I think Tara would approve of that."
"DAMN YOU!" Warren screamed. He leapt at Buffy— and things got seriously crazy.
Warren was fast— Buffy was a touch faster, and I was, too. Most of us full-on Slayers were.
I held off until Buffy had hit him once, and so did Mom. One hit from Buffy (okay, one kick, a perfect replacement sidekick) sent Warren flying backwards to land on his ass in the middle of the circle.
"Back up, girls," Xander called. "Give Buffy room to work without worrying about you."
The newbies all backed up a few paces each, and Lydia came over to stand with Willow, hold her hand and say softly, "I think you're right, from what you've told me about Tara, Willow— she'd think this was a great payback. So do I."
Warren started to climb to his feet— and Mom and I simultaneously moved.
My hands went to my hip pockets, came out with the two crazy-discs Mom had given me even as she pulled out the two she'd kept for herself. I crossed my arms on my chest, held the discs at my shoulders for a beat as I felt for the flight path and the moment— then my arms flew out, I released when they made a perfect one-eighty, seemingly threw them at Colin and Berachah (our Israeli Slayer).
Mom's discs, seemingly thrown at Giles and a Russian girl named Svetlana, flashed out at the same moment.
Crazy-discs are so called because they don't fly straight. Only me, Mom and maybe another three dozen Slayers on the planet could use them right, feel where they'd go if you threw them just so— they curve naturally in flight, and you can sharpen or flatten the curve by wrist action, but you have to have a feel for throwing things…. I have that feel, and I got it from Mom.
Mom and I had worked together before, so I didn't need to plan my strikes, I knew where hers would go, and vice versa.
My two discs thunked into the backs of Warren's knees, sank deep, and knocked him to the ground— right after Mom's two bit into his back, right over the area where a person would have shoulder blades. All four of our discs flew great, wide arcs, more than a half circle— and Warren didn't understand what was happening until it was way too late to dodge.
He pushed himself up after falling— but he moved more slowly. We hadn't crippled him like we would have a human, but we'd slowed him down. That should be enough.
"Oh, you BITCHES!" Warren screamed. "Buffy first, then you two, then the rest!"
"You know, for someone who hates whining, you sure do a lot of it," Buffy said. "Come on and kill me if you can, you child-murdering bag of shit!"
Warren charged at her, a lumbering run like a slow but powerful football player, and Buffy set herself for his charge. When he reached her, she fired off a round kick-back-round-kick combination that sent him staggering back, but he didn't fall— quite.
I wanted a shot at him myself, but Buffy deserved this, it was her son that he'd killed, her daughter he'd threatened. She and Xander had the most right to kill him. Still… no harm in being prepared, right?
" 'Scuse me," I said to a nearby newbie. "Toss me your weapon, please?"
Lydia had been working with the girls on choosing edged weapons that suited them, and the girl in question— Sherry Plimpton, the Mormon girl with homophobia issues (though she seemed to be trying to get past that, points to her)— had a gladius, a Roman-style short sword, in her hand.
She looked down at the weapon blankly for a moment, shook herself, nodded, and tossed me the sword. She did it right, too— one and a half rotations, and the hilt slapped into my hand.
"Thanks," I said, and turned back to the fight.
Buffy had control, still, but Warren didn't seem inclined to quit, or to fall over dead— or whatever the equivalent of dead is for a robot. In fact, the crazy-discs in his knees and shoulders had worked themselves out of his body, fallen to the ground— and he was starting to move faster, better.
Buffy didn't mind. She kept fighting, working, doing visible damage to the damned robotic son-of-a-bitch, tearing his synthetic skin, bending the framework underneath it, where that frame was thinner and weaker. He seemed to be able to adapt to the damage done, though— he'd slow down, then get faster again after ten or fifteen seconds, like he was, I don't know, re-routing systems or something.
Then I saw something bad about to happen, and I acted on instinct— and got it right, for once.
Buffy darted in, fired off seven or eight vicious punches to Warren's stomach, chest and throat. Warren took the blows— and lashed out with his foot, caught Buffy a kick square in the stomach that actually lifted her off of the ground a little. She came back down doubled over, arms across her gut, and Warren's right hand flashed up beside his head. I saw blades shoot out of the tips of his fingers, three-inch long silvery blades that I knew would do horrible damage to Buffy, if they didn't kill her—
No thought, no time for thought. My right hand flashed out, coming up from my side in a long, smooth arc that was just right, just what it needed to be— and the gladius punched through Warren's hand and into his head, pinning the hand and the blades that tipped it to his head.
He turned to look at me, purest hate somehow shining from his artificial eyes. The sword buried in his head didn't seem to bother him much, and I decided that his robotic brain must not be in his head.
"You," Warren said in a distinctly pissy voice, "are on my last damned nerve, little girl. You're gonna die slow— just as soon as I'm done with Buffy.
"Wanna bet?" Buffy asked.
Warren turned back to face her— and Buffy shoved the bastard sword she'd taken from a newbie after recovering her breath into his torso right beneath the sternum.
Some sort of electrical discharge flung Buffy back away from Warren, but she rolled out of it (a little awkwardly as her muscles spasmed from the shock, but she rolled out of it), and climbed slowly to her feet.
Warren's free hand clutched at the sword as he jittered and spasmed in place, tried to pull it out— but failed. He sank to his knees, looking back and forth from me to Buffy, said in a slow, dragging voice, "Biiiiitchezzzzzz!" and fell face first on the ground.
Buffy blew her hair out of her face and turned to hug Xander and Joyce, even as Mom and Dad came over to hug me.
"You did good, Jocelyn!" Mom said, kissing my cheek. "Sweetie, you did it just right— that thing with the discs? We done that before, sure, but girl, the thing with stopping him from slashing Buffy? Damn fine throw, damn good call."
"As usual, your mother is dead on target," Dad said. "Sweetheart, that was a damn good set of choices you just made, and I'm proud of you."
"Thanks," I said, blushing a little, but smiling a lot. "Thanks, Mom, thanks, Dad."
"Excuse me, can I get in here a second?" Buffy said, and Mom and Dad stepped back. Buffy stood in front of me, put her fists on her hips, gave a me a stern look and said, just loud enough for me, Mom and Dad to hear, "Not meant to be a Slayer my ass!
"You just saved my life, or at least saved me a lot of pain, and you did it without taking away the satisfaction I got by killing that bastard, Jocelyn Kelly Penobscot!
"You, young lady, kick ass."
She hugged me, and I felt almost good about things. Still some doubt, some worry— but good anyway.
"All right, everyone," Giles called as Xander and Joyce came over to hug me themselves, "I think we shall call an end to classes for the day— you can return to your rooms, or take advantage of one of the recreation areas.
"Sh'rin, Dawn, will Kalyani need a hospital?"
"No, she is stable, and with the healing ability of Slayers, she will be fine here," Sh'rin said. "She will need watching for a time, but—"
"I'll do it!" Joyce said. She stepped forward and said, "Giles, Mom, Dad— everybody. Kalyani got hurt because she tried to get between me and Warren. She recognized him, and she got between me and him, and tried to stop him. He caught her sword and took it away, stabbed her with it— and she still kept trying to grab him!"
"God, I love her already," Buffy said. "Joyce, you can sit with her, but you make sure to call for Dawn or Sh'rin if Kalyani wakes up or her condition changes."
"No one touch the… remains, please," Giles said. "I'm going to have Willow contain the robot in a stasis field until we can get Brian Keller here to look at it."
"Be just a couple of minutes, Giles," Willow called. "I need an actual spell for this one, Lydia went to get me a book— not real sure about suspending time around a robot, so I want a book."
People started drifting away, Joyce going after Sh'rin, Dawn, and the two newbies carrying a stretcher with Kalyani on it, Xander and Buffy going to speak to Giles, Mom and Dad going off to reassure my brothers and sisters. Mi Kyong and Colin, who'd been standing off to one side, started towards me, Royal started flapping in my direction— and everything went wrong, so wrong that I can't find the words.
I turned to wave at Colin and Mi Kyong, and all of the sudden Royal SCREAMED in my head.
*JOCELYN!*
I spun, saw my oldest, best friend diving at me, saw a flicker of motion on the ground near me, looked to see Warren rolling to his side, his hand coming out of his stomach, a gun in it, moving so fast I couldn't even hope to out-speed him—
The gun went off as Royal hit my shoulder, trying to knock me aside. There was a peculiar triple impact as Royal slammed into me, got slammed into me harder a split second later, and something punched through him and into me. I felt monstrous pain in my chest, a worse pain in my mind, and the worst pain of all in my heart— as the light in my head that was Royal, a light I couldn't ever remember not being there… went out.
"MONSTER!" I screamed. I didn't look at the body of my best friend, couldn't look— and didn't have to. The absence of him in my head, the sensation of something vital and necessary being torn out of my head, torn away and leaving a gaping wound that would bleed until I died, that told me everything I needed to know; Royal was dead, dead at Warren's hands.
I blurred as I moved towards him, Aunt Rose told me later. Bullet in my chest and all, I was so far gone into blind rage and hurt that I moved faster than I ever have in my life.
I hit Warren with both feet, came down on him from maybe eight feet up, out of the biggest aerial I'd ever done. He shot me again, in the gut. I didn't notice other than that it almost knocked me off of him. I jerked the longsword out of his gut, drove it into his chest, got an electric shock, shook it off, took still another bullet in the chest, lunged back to straddle his legs, drove the sword into his gut, just below the navel— and Warren went still, froze in mid motion.
I started hitting him, hitting his face over and over. My knuckles broke on the metal of his face, and I kept on hitting him, pounding him and screaming "MURDERER!" over and over.
Hands tried to pull me off, and I shook them off, swung blindly at the owners of those hands, kept hitting Warren's disintegrating face and screaming.
Then something grabbed me that I couldn't hit, wrapped me up in what felt like cool, hard plastic, lifted me off of Warren, and I knew that Willow had grabbed me telekinetically. Even as I drifted away from Warren's body, still screaming and trying to fight, I saw Colin's hands flare gold-white— and Warren's body melted, then burned.
I heard Willow, voice ragged and weepy, say "Somnus!"— and the world went dark.
Interlude:
Willow set Jocelyn, bleeding and badly wounded, down at her mother and father's sides, sent a telepathic message to Dawn and Sh'rin, who were rushing that way, that Jocelyn was in a magical sleep and they could treat her without fear of waking her, and went to see if there was any chance of helping Royal. Given Jocelyn's madness, Willow didn't think so— but she had to check.
One look told her that Royal could not be helped. The bullet had punched clear through him, gone in one side below and behind a wing, come out the other below and in front of the wing. It had torn a huge exit wound, and Willow sobbed to see it, even as her own pseudo dragon, a pale orange boy named Dingo, dropped to her shoulder and sent *Turn away, Willow. Turn away. Don't see him so.*
"No," Willow said, getting a grip on herself. "No. Not yet. I have to… for Jocelyn, I have to… she can't see him like this. And we can't bury him, not 'til she can be there."
Willow let Dingo calm her, help her find the words of the spell she needed, one that restored a body to its last healthy appearance, and cast it— then cast a second spell that froze Royal's body in time, so that he would not decay before Jocelyn could be at his burial.
She looked around for something to cover him with and saw Whitey coming over, carrying a blanket that he'd had someone get from one house or the other. She stepped back and he knelt beside Royal's body, saw the lack of visible damage, looked up at Willow and said, "Thank you, Willow. And thank you for shutting Jocelyn down before she hurt herself worse."
"You're welcome," Willow said, her voice ragged. "Is she going to be okay?"
"Dawn and Sh'rin are going to be able to take care of her here," Whitey said in a low voice as he stood, cradling Royal's blanket-wrapped body. He looked down at the bundle, sighed and said in a shaky voice, "I don't know about 'okay,' not after… this."
"I wish… I wish it had been something magical, dammit," Willow said. "Something I could bring him back from!"
"So do I," Whitey said. "I need to go to Jocelyn, Willow. Thank you again."
He went to where Dawn and Sh'rin worked over his daughter, and Willow went to stand next to them and wait until Jocelyn could be moved, Lydia next to her, holding her. When Dawn and Sh'rin had done all they could, Willow lifted Jocelyn telekinetically, floated her into the house slowly and steadily, put her in the guest bedroom across from her parents' room on the first floor, then went home with Lydia to have a long cry.
Jocelyn had lost a lot of blood, and done herself a great deal of damage by refusing to lay down and not aggravate her wounds in her need to punish Warren. Sh'rin and Dawn stood watch over her in alternating shifts for forty-eight hours, always with someone else with them— Whitey, Chantelle, Colin or Mi Kyong. The girl did not wake up in all that time, though Willow checked telepathically and assured them that she hadn't slipped into a coma or anything— her body had simply taken more punishment than it could be expected to heal from easily, and stayed shut down into something beyond 'sleep mode' while it was making repairs.
Everyone stayed alert and somber that whole time— and very shortly after the incident, before he even allowed himself to be sure that his goddaughter would be well, Giles took care of a piece of very urgent business. Normally, he'd have asked Whitey, Willow or Dawn to help him with what he had to do, but Willow needed time to recover from events, Whitey could only be half-sane at best, with his daughter so badly hurt in so many ways, and Dawn was needed to help care for the girl. He called for Rose, the next-most computer proficient person in the house, and she came, cuddling her pseudo dragon, Glitter, who was weeping inconsolably for the death of one of her first hatchlings. Cursing himself for a fool, Giles apologized and asked her to send him Ballard, whose pseudo dragon had not been related to Royal, so would not be in so much pain.
Ballard came in and Giles said, "Can you make this computer ready for an emergency message to all posts, Ballard?"
"Sure, Giles," Ballard said, a small smile crossing his face. "Someday, we'll get you into the twenty-first century, you know."
"Only if you give me a computerized casket," Giles said. He watched as Ballard opened a program, did something, attached a headset with a microphone to the computer, did something else, then handed Giles the headset.
"Put this on and speak normally," Ballard said. "Don't shout, you'll get distorted."
Giles put the headset on and started to speak.
"Attention all Team Slayer Stations and START outposts," he said in a clear, concise voice. "This is Rupert Giles, head of the Watchers' Council, with an emergency broadcast.
"Council Headquarters in Normal has just been attacked by the robotic Warren Mears. While no humans died, two were severely injured and… one pseudo dragon was killed.
"The body of Warren Mears— a body of Warren Mears— has been destroyed. However, we have reason to believe that, since he is no longer governed by human limitations, this is in no way the end of this particular threat. Thanks to a Slayer in the household here having a visionary dream, we have deduced that Warren has duplicated his consciousness into more than one robotic body. We do not know the number of duplicates.
"It is my belief that Warren hopes that we will report him ended completely, allowing him to attack completely by surprise and do monstrous damage to Team Slayer and its members.
"That is not going to happen. He will take no more from us, not so easily.
"All stations, all personnel, all Slayers, Watchers, Guardians and staff, as well as all START personnel, are to go immediately to START condition Joshua Red; the highest of alerts, while maintaining an appearance of relaxation. Should Warren Mears attack, you are to destroy him with ranged weapons if at all possible, and to destroy the body as completely as possible via magic or heavy weaponry. Do not assume the body inert before it is destroyed and melted; such an assumption has already cost us grievous injury of a Slayer— and the death of her pseudo dragon friend.
"Report any hostile actions that are definitely those of Warren Mears to me personally by telephone, regardless of the hour.
"That is all. Be careful, all of you."
Giles took off the headset, Ballard shut down the broadcast program, and the two men looked at each other for a long moment.
"This is going to screw Jocelyn up even more, Giles," Ballard said slowly, almost as though he spoke against his will. "She's going to be so hurt, so tangled up in her pain— the things already wrong with her are going to get worse."
"I fear you are right," Gils said, taking his glasses off and tossing them on the desk as he rubbed his eyes. "Bloody hell what a mess."
"Yeah," Ballard agreed. "Damn that miserable bastard to hell! First Alex, then he takes a shot at Joyce, then at Buffy— then he does this to Jocelyn.
"He needs to die a really nasty death."
"I could not agree more," Giles said. "Ballard… our families need us. I am going to go and have a sit down with Kelly and Riley— after I speak to Vincent about getting additional security on the house for a time."
Before Giles got out of the study, the doorbell rang, and he went to answer it with Ballard trailing after him, unwilling to let him go alone right now. Giles checked out the peephole, relaxed visibly, and opened the door. On the doorstep stood a man in START Battle Dress Uniform, and in the drive behind him stood a dozen men, and more appearing out of a glowing doorway in the air behind the group.
"Good morning, sir," the young man said. "I'm Captain Lee. On hearing your broadcast, Colonel Miller had one of our wizards open a gateway here, and instructed me and my command to guard you until you say otherwise. The Colonel said to tell you that he's coming himself, as soon as he can get out of the field— should be here tomorrow or the next day, he's working on tracking down a werewolf that went and made itself head of a pack of about fifteen by biting about fifteen people."
"Thank you, Captain Lee," Giles said. "I must confess, I feel better for your presence. We have two completely unoccupied dorms at the moment— you and your men will use them. Please don't argue, I won't have you sleeping in tents while you're here to protect us."
"Thank you, sir," Lee said. "We'll try to be unobtrusive, but you should tell your people we're here."
Giles told everyone about the START soldiers, then did as he'd intended, and went to spend some time with his wife and son.
Half an hour later, the phone rang with the first report of an attack by Warren Mears on a Team Slayer headquarters, with the new head of the New York branch, Mike Havel, reporting an assault by a Warren Mears robot.
"We blew him to hell and gone, Giles," Mike said. "Four of my Slayers hit him repeatedly with crossbows and spears, and when he finally went down, I sprayed him down with homemade napalm and lit him up. Body's a fused mess, he won't be pulling a monster-movie-comeback on us."
"Thank you, Mike," Giles said. "Don't let your guard down yet, and do be careful."
"Will do," Havel said, and hung up.
Over the next three hours, sixteen more stations reported assaults by Warren Mears robots. Four more of them managed to destroy the attacker, but the remaining twelve escaped by breaking off and fleeing as soon as they realized that they had no element of surprise. Another seventeen reported sightings of Mears, though he fled before attacking in each of those cases.
Nearly thirty of him, Giles thought, horrified and angered. Dear lord, how are we to stop him? How are we to ever be sure that there is not one more Warren out there, building more?
He found no answer.
Jocelyn's family took turns watching over her with Dawn or Sh'rin, one of whom was always there.
Kalyani Ravinuthala woke up that evening, found Joyce Harris sitting by her bed, and got very thoroughly thanked by both the girl and her parents. By Wednesday afternoon, some thirty hours after she'd been wounded, she could get around on her own, if she moved slowly and carefully.
Jocelyn slept, slept too deeply to dream. Her body healed, aided by the knowledge and care of Dawn and Sh'rin. She had come as close to dying as she could without needing a hospital, and if not for certain magics that Sh'rin had brought out of her time and the incredible healing power of Slayers, she would have needed cosmetic surgery to remove the scars of her encounter with Warren Mears.
She slept, she healed. Her family watched over her, worried, and wondered if there was anything they could do for her when she woke.
Thursday afternoon, just after lunch, Jocelyn did wake up, sat up with a little cry as though she'd woken from a nightmare. Sh'rin and Chantellle were in the room with her at the time, and moved to her side immediately. Sh'rin made her lie back while she examined the girl, and Chantelle took her daughter's hands in hers and held them, trying to offer comfort without words.
Jocelyn lay there silently, not speaking, not looking at Sh'rin or her mother. When Sh'rin had finished her examination, decided that Jocelyn would heal, she asked "How do you feel, Jocelyn?"
For a long moment, Jocelyn did not answer. Finally, she said in a voice that came out flat and wooden, "Dead."
She then rolled over, buried her face in the pillow, and started crying, wailing so loud that it was almost as though she screamed.
She didn't stop for most of an hour, and only stopped then because she fell into a sleep that seemed more like unconsciousness.