To the Power Born: A Tale of the Slayers
Part 28: Confusion, Goodbye, Hello….
I climbed into the shower and thought about what Piper Benjamin, who'd been Peter Parker until a mad supervillain cloned him and made the clone a girl, had accidentally (I was sure) told me about at least part of her issues with the gender change that had been forced on her. Part of those issues came from the fact that Piper, through some quirk of the cloning process, remembered her life as Peter Parker— as a boy. That probably only made it harder for her to accept what she'd revealed to me as we'd been walking towards my house— our house, now, she was going to stay here with us.
I'll get over my people issues, Piper had said to me, then, Crap, no lying, Diane said I can be honest with you folks and that I need to, so I'll get over my issues with guys (especially attractive guys) eventually, but not right away.
Oh. I knew a little bit about Spider-man— what American kid doesn't, and besides, there were a lot of comic fans in the family, both blood and otherwise— and so far as I knew, the character had never been presented as either gay or bisexual.
And here's poor Piper, a guy in her head— and apparently either a straight or bisexual female by virtue of biology, suddenly finding some guys attractive.
(I wondered if that was accidental or deliberate— obviously the universe where Piper had been "born" was way more advanced than mine in genetics, and I knew enough about Dr. Octopus to know that he was a serious asshole. He'd probably done it deliberately, taken some satisfaction in knowing that, even though the clone wasn't supposed to remember anything about being Peter Parker, he— Ock— had managed to seriously mess with his arch-enemy. Heck, since the clone was meant to be a CIA operative, maybe they'd even asked for her to be biologically set to be bisexual— it'd make her suited for more of the "seduce and subvert/blackmail" kind of missions, maybe…?)
Me, I've known I liked guys and girls since before it even mattered, you know? So I could only try to imagine the confusion Piper had to be feeling, and to be honest? I don't think I did a very good job with that imagining, because I'm not equipped to.
I resolved to be really careful about not making anything that might be construed as a pass at her, because honestly, I liked her— she set herself between four exceptionally nasty monsters and what she thought were a bunch of innocent civilians in the first seconds I ever saw her. Made a really good first impression, you know?
I got clean, checked my email, printed out a half-dozen copies of the "blank female" costume-creation form that Thomas Dunlap let his players use to make their costumes when he ran superhero games and had sent to me, and went down to supper.
Piper sat with Colin, Mi Kyong, my sisters and I for the meal, and she did talk to Colin some— not that much, but then she didn't talk to any of us much— she was too busy actually eating— or calling her thanks and compliments to Xander and Sh'rin, the evening's cooks, every few bites.
After the meal, Piper tried to help with the clean-up, which made another good impression, but she was shooed away after being assured that she'd be put in the cleanup rotation effective the next Monday, which seemed to satisfy her. After that, she got distracted by asking about what had happened between the collapse of the Sunnydale Hellmouth and her arrival. Buffy asked how fast she read, and Piper admitted that she was a speed-reader, at which point Aunt Rose was sent to get a copy of Chosen to Stand for Piper to read. Being Aunt Rose, she made a proper gift of it, as she had with Mi Kyong, which got her a hug that looked heartfelt, if brief.
"After you've finished that," Buffy said, smiling a little, "you can ask pretty much anyone about the time between the end of the book and now. I'd advise Whitey, Vi or Sh'rin, though— they're the three least likely to play down their own roles in things."
"Okay," Piper agreed, and shook her head. "You know, I don't think you can ever get how weird it is sitting here talking to Buffy the vampire Slayer as casually as… well, as casually as sitting around talking with Gwen Stacy."
"Maybe she can't," Xander said, looking amused, "but as a comic geek who read the title you appeared in for a large part of its run? I can."
"Okay, that's… a good point." Piper shook her head and asked, "Was the artist any good?
"Wait, no— don't answer that, I don't want to know."
People broke up to go to their various houses, and before I went off with Piper to work on a new costume for her, Colin asked for some help with finishing off something he'd been slowly putting together since the night he finally told us about the alien bastards killing all those people and leaving him feeling so guilty; he'd been slowly putting together things to send to his friend Armsman, to tell him that he was okay now, and so that Armsman could pass that around.
"I have almost everything," Colin said. "But… well, you guys, you're all my family now, and I want him to… to come as close to meeting you all as he can, because Jason was like my brother.
"So… could you help me get some video of everyone? Talk them into introducing themselves, explaining who they are and what they do?"
"With great pleasure, Colin," I said, and kissed him. "Tomorrow, I'll bet we can get some action shots of everyone doing what they do, you know? Giles and the other Watchers teaching, my aunts teaching their various things, Willow doing some magic, Lydia in two-swords mode against Aunt Rose, various Slayers sparring— and pseudo dragons being perfect, mustn't forget that."
"Neat," Colin said, and kissed me. "Good idea."
"And you could send your friend copies of Aunt Elaine's dances," Mi Kyong said, smiling as she always did when so much as mentioning those. "And perhaps an electronic copy of Aunt Rose's book?"
"Oh, hell, yes!" Colin said, a grin spreading across his face. "Mi Kyong, that's brilliant!"
"Damn right," I said, and hugged her when he let go. "Wish I'd thought of that. Good job, Mi Kyong."
Most of the family agreed easily to introducing themselves on camera, and Colin got smart— he made sure everyone knew that he'd be adding editorial comments if they got too modest, so that if they didn't want him doing that, they had to be honest about what they did— and how well they did it.
All the kids— younger than me, I mean— ate it up, talked cheerfully to a super hero that they'd never meet. Of the grown ups, only Uncle Ballard and Giles were really shy, but we got them past it pretty easily. Giles even suggested that it might be a good idea to send along copies of that year's pre-Activation Day commercials, and a couple of training films he had in electronic media.
The next day we filmed a ton of training stuff, got copies of both of Aunt Elaine's dances, e-books of Chosen to Stand (LOTS of formats, so they'd be sure to be able to read one of them), all of the video from that year's commercials and the training videos, and put it on one computer. Colin spent the hour or so before dinner and a couple of hours after editing things together, then filmed a message to his friend and carefully boxed everything up. Once that had been done, we got Riley, Kelly and Giles's son— a talented artist— to draw the star insignia that Colin had worn on his costume on the paper, then put the sword that Armsman used for an insignia over the star.
Once that was all done, Willow took over, and she, Aunt Dawn and Aunt Sh'rin got together with Giles and Kelly (Kelly had a knack for ritual magic, to her never-ending amazement) to send the box and its contents to a place of Colin's choosing on his earth.
Ten minutes later the box vanished— and Colin let out a soft sigh. "Take care of yourself, Jason."
Then he let me take him to bed and do my level best to love him to sleep. It worked— but it took a while.
Not like I minded how long it took….
Interlude: Another Earth, Oak Park, Illinois; August 7th 2018
Jason Hudson, AKA Armsman, was sitting across from his wife having a late dinner in their kitchen when the miniature lightning storm started in his back yard.
"Yeah, okay, School Girl Rage, not the best code name I've ever heard, but the costume fits in with the name, it distracts the dumber male criminals, and her heart's in the right place," Jason said to his wife. "Add in Sense-Dep and Horizon, and I'm pretty sure that DC's in g— what the hell!?"
Lightning bolts had lit up the dim back yard, small ones, maybe three feet long, in more colors than Jason could count. They radiated from a point about four feet above the ground out under the huge old oak tree that shaded the back corner of the fenced-in yard. Jason stood and stared for a moment— and saw something rectangular fall to the ground as the lightning winked out.
"Stay here, Kate," he said as he stood. "Let me check it out."
"Yes, love," his wife said, but stood to kiss him. "Be careful. If one of the bad guys has figured out who you are…."
"I know, I'll be careful," Jason said. "Don't think so, though— why give me a warning like that? And there's something… familiar about this. Don't know what, that won't come, but familiar."
Jason went out the back door, went to the spot under the tree and saw a box, maybe eight inches by eight inches by four thick, wrapped in plain white paper, sitting on the ground under where that miniature lightning storm had come from. He edged closer, trying to remember where he'd seen that multi-colored lightning before, saw the star-and-sword drawn on the paper wrapping— and remembered the lightning storm when Colin had disappeared.
With no more thought of this being a trap, Jason scooped up the box and tore the paper off, created a small knife with his solid energy to cut the tape away, and opened the box. Right on top was a note, a note in Colin Goddard's handwriting that said, "Watch the disc in the blank case first, Jason— then go to the rest."
"Colin," Jason said softly. He grinned, wiped away tears of relief, then threw his head back and whooped, "YOU'RE ALIVE!"
He went inside, showed Kate the note— and she kissed him, hugged him and laughed in relief with him, then pulled him into the living room and sat with him after he'd put the appropriate disc in the DVD player and snuggled up to him as he pressed play.
The screen lit up with an image of Colin Goddard, hale, healthy, smiling— alive!— sitting in a comfortable-looking armchair near a set of doors that appeared to lead to a balcony.
"Hello, Jason," Colin said, smiling a little sadly. "And hello, Kate— I'm sure you're watching. And if Marie isn't off with her band, I'm sure she's there, too. Hi, Marie.
"First… I'm okay. Really, truly okay. Physically fine, mentally and emotionally… I still have some healing to do, but I'm doing it. I'm working at it, and I'm not having to go it alone. I've found friends, a family… and I'm in love. Guess I owe you an apology for my initial reaction to you three being lovers— now I understand, kind of, since the girl I'm in love with is… open about wanting a relationship like what you three have. Sorry— I wasn't in a position to understand, not then.
"So… let me tell you what happened, how I got here, and about the world I found myself in."
Before Colin could continue, a tiny dragon, a deep purple-blue color, flew into the frame and landed on his shoulder. It couldn't have been more than nine inches long from nose to tail-tip, and it looked smooth and shiny… and almost irritatingly cute.
"Ah— well, seems I'm doing this a little out of order. Jason and Kate Hudson, Marie Kovacs-Hudson, allow me to introduce my new and very dear friend, Nightfall. Nightfall's a pseudo dragon, right out of that Dungeons and Dragons game, but I'm not in a D & D world or anything.
"Let me tell you everything, then introduce you to my new family and friends— then I'll ask a favor or six, then you can watch how I'm paying for those favors…."
They watched, fascinated, as Colin explained what had happened to him, where he'd ended up, and how he'd fallen into a group of people who could and would help him, who worked to help him. They "met" the people he considered his friends and family, and the girl he'd fallen in love with— as well as a veritable army of pseudo dragons.
Once they'd seen all of the new people in Colin's life and heard his tale of the things that had happened to him since he arrived on the parallel world he'd disappeared to, the video again cut to Colin and his pseudo dragon friend in the chair.
"There you have it," Colin said, grinning and stroking the little dragon (who had climbed down to rest on Colin's folded arm). "I leap from a world of super heroes to a world of supernatural heroes. Seems almost like a logical step.
"But… well, I hope you understand that I'm… happy here. Happier here than I think I could be back at home, anymore. Here… here I don't have to deal with the memory of Miami so directly. It's once removed, if you get me— and that makes it so that I can get past it.
"Add in that I wouldn't leave Jocelyn for the world, or ask Nightfall to forego ever having a mate, and… this is home, now.
"Sure, it has its dangers. This Warren-bot guy and his merry band of psychos, they're a real threat, but Giles, he's brilliant at this sort of thing, and the Watchers, they're all just as good, if more specialized. And the Slayers… Jason, if you had fifty of them, you'd never have to worry about a bad guy again. These girls aren't as powerful as most heroes on our world, and they don't have the variety of powers you guys do— but they're damned good at what they do, and they're as dedicated as any of us ever were.
"So… there's two more videos like this one in the bottom of the box, labeled with my mom's and my dad's addresses. Send those on, would you? And tell everyone there that I'm okay, let them watch this if you're so inclined. I'm not asking you to show it to Sin-fire or anything, but the rest? Yeah. Please, show it to them, and the two commercial videos, too.
"Those two videos… they're the first two fully choreographed dances done in outer space on this Earth, and on ours, since it's never been done there. Watch Dance the Heavens Home first, then the other one— which is deliberately untitled, so that you get the impact we all did of seeing the title at the end of it. Then on the USB drive in the box is an electronic copy of the book that Rose wrote about the big battle that led to what's happening with us now. It's in several formats, I'm sure one or more will work for you. In fact, there's even an MP3 version of the audio book."
Colin simply sat stroking the dragon on his arm for a long moment, then looked up into the camera and said, "I'm happy here. I… I think I belong here. But that doesn't mean I don't miss you, all three of you. Jason, you were the brother I never had and always wanted, and Kate, Marie, you just… let me into your lives on Jason's say-so.
"I can't repay you guys for that. Hell, Jason, I can't repay you for the things you taught me about being a hero, let alone for being my brother in every way that counts.
"But I had to at least let you know that I'm okay. And maybe the dances and the book, those will pay you back a little bit.
"Be well. Be happy.
"I love you guys."
For a long moment, Jason Hudson simply stared at the now-blank screen. Then he kissed his wife and said, "I'm pretty eager to see those dances, dear, and I know you are, too, but… I need to go out for a little bit. Armsman-out, I mean. Then I'll come back and we'll watch them, okay?"
"All right, Jason," Kate said, standing and going to kiss him, chuckling as he stroked the barely-there swelling of her belly— she was only four months pregnant, and the swelling of her tummy might even be imaginary, but that never stopped her husband from running a loving hand over it. "Where does Armsman have to go, though?"
"I need to see Cyber Knight," Jason said as he headed upstairs for his costume.
She waited until Jason came back down in his Armsman costume, then asked, "Why do you need to see Cyber Knight, dear?"
Armsman kissed her and again stroked her belly before saying, "He's been working on a way to bring Starpulse back home— I need to tell him to stop.
"Colin's happy, Kate, that came through in every second of that video— and he deserves it. So Knight needs to stop trying to bring him back here."
Kate kissed him hard, showing her approval the best way she knew how, then said, "Hey— maybe you could suggest something else instead, Jason."
"What's that, Kate?" he asked.
"See if the kid can work up an easy, reliable method of getting messages back and forth between this world and that one— then you could at least exchange things like that video with Colin." She grinned at her husband and sprang something on him that he would never have asked for, but that she knew would make him happy. "Besides, if this baby of ours turns out to be a boy… I think that Colin deserves to know that we named it after him."
Armsman kissed his wife very urgently after that, thanked her quietly— then flew off to find Cyber Knight and make sure that he didn't try to take Colin away from a world and a lot of people that he had come to love.
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Jocelyn:
After sending that package off to his friends and family on his home earth, Colin seemed to get more… more focused. He'd been taking martial arts courses with the trainees, and a couple of days after that package went out, Buffy sent him to Dad and our group, said he was ready for the advanced class. His work with Giles and the other Watchers on learning about the way the supernatural worked started going faster, and he just got better faster.
Piper, too, seemed to make progress— but the real leap came later, and there was some definite help there from a source that we should have expected.
The shopping trip the night that Piper had arrived had gone well enough— but she'd been horribly embarrassed when Aunt Dawn, forgetting Piper's background, suggested that she have a couple of dresses, which she apparently wasn't ready for. Aunt Dawn realized what she'd done, apologized, and Piper got past it— but she was still a little pink when we got home.
We'd also settled on a design for her new costume that evening— she had a good eye for superhero costumes, but then, she'd come up with the original Spider-man costume, so that shouldn't have surprised me. Willow had then changed the colors of a standard suit of leather-plastic-and-metal Slayer armor magically— Spider-woman might well act independently of Team Slayer sometime, so we couldn't just order the usual armor done in the design without potentially giving away her identity. Then, as an afterthought, we got her a second set in the ordinary black-and-gray, giving her a choice as to which version to wear. She really appreciated that, and didn't hesitate to say so.
The new costume was a leather, dark red Slayer-armor suit with unusually thin-soled boots and thin gloves with the tops of the fingers missing from the gloves. A bone-white (Piper and I both liked that just-off-white color) spider centered on her torso (smaller than the original, and looking less like a freaking ribcage-thing) with the front two of its long, slender legs running up to and slightly over her shoulders, the middle four wrapping around her ribs and upper waist, going out of sight to her back, the lower pair trailing off of the abdomen and onto the upper thighs. On the back, each of the top six legs touched the outer edges of a web design, also in bone-white, that ran from the top of Piper's butt almost up to her shoulders. For a mask, a simple tie-on thing in the same deep red as the costume, or what looked like a simple tie on thing. In reality, there were some plastic build-ups built into it that made Piper's eyes appear more deeply set, her cheekbones look more prominent and wider.
When she tried it on, Piper put that suit through its paces, did acrobatics I can only dream of doing, then climbed up the walls of Scooby mansion before coming back down. She had me take out the two metal strike-plates that rested over the kidneys, and after that, she had no problem moving as insanely acrobatically as always. Over then next couple of days, Daddy modified those plates with a chainmail seam at the point of her bending, and she was able to wear them and still move.
She kept working with Diane, too, saw her every other day, ending up on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, while I continued my Monday, Wednesday and Friday schedule with Diane. Diane seemed pleased with Piper's progress— and then Piper got that help that we should have expected.
Aunt Sh'rin's pseudo dragon friend, Shimmer, had laid eggs the day after Piper arrived, a full clutch of six. The Wednesday after Piper's arrival, they hatched— and when we went to see them (I went with Piper), one of the six, a dark, slate-gray boy, seemed to think that Piper was the coolest thing since beef jerky.
When we finally left— my brother Stephen and sister Danielle were waiting their turn, so we had to go— Piper had this little smile on her face that I'd seen enough to recognize it.
"Do you think that little gray guy…?" she asked hesitantly.
"I think that it's a possibility," I agreed, and kissed the top of Ripley's head— she'd gone with us, too. "I also think that if not him? Well, Charm— Aunt Elaine's friend?— laid eggs last night.
"You're not going to have to wait too long for this particular variety of treat, I don't think, Piper."
"Cool," she said, and we went off to lunch.
In my therapy session that afternoon, Diane asked me if Piper had asked me about why I was seeing Diane, and I said that she hadn't.
"If she does, what will you tell her?" Diane asked.
"The truth," I said with a shrug. "I'm not… yes, I am. I'm a little ashamed of the way I let not being Chosen get to me, Diane, but… but the couple of times I admitted that it scares me, that it makes me worry that I'm not good enough, it's helped. I mean, I think it has. I felt better after each time."
"It's helping," Diane assured me. She gave me a grin and said, "That you know it's helping says good things.
"If she asks, do please tell her. She… she's very attached to you, Jocelyn, and I think she's a little worried about you, which, given the things she's been through? Pretty impressive."
"Uh, yeah," I said, trying to process that Piper might be worried about me. "I mean— she's got a ton of other stuff that has to be on her mind, and she's worried about me? Kinda flattered, here."
"Good enough for me," Diane said, and stood. "Okay, go do what you do— what's on your agenda now, anyway?"
"Training's done for the day, I've already had a shower," I said, waggling my eyebrows. "I think I'll go attack my boyfriend."
"Have fun," Diane chuckled, and waved as I left the room she was using as an office.
Unfortunately, Colin was playing chess with Giles (and being slaughtered, of course— only Whitey, Xander, Vincent and Aunt Dawn could give Giles a game that challenged him), so instead, I decided to walk Richter. As I was heading for the door, Piper called, "Hey, want some company? Or maybe just some extra weight on the leash?"
"Sure, come on," I agreed. "If he starts running away, there's nobody else here who can give 'plant your feet' quite the meaning that you can…."
Piper laughed, stood from the kitchen table— she'd been idly watching Mom cook— and followed me, Richter and Ripley outside. We went around the house, then I headed around the block. At first, we talked about nothing in particular, her martial arts lessons— Piper was learning Capoeira and Aunt Rose's "Hwarang Fu," and doing really well with both— and about Shimmer's babies, then Piper seemed to get a little more serious.
"Can I ask you… something personal?" she asked as we rounded the corner onto the empty side of the block opposite the one my house was on.
"I can't promise you I'll answer," I said easily, "but you can ask me anything, Piper, anytime."
"Okay, well… it's really not my business, I get that, but… I look at you next to me and you're so completely not-messed-up that I can't figure out why you're seeing Diane at all." She glanced at me, saw no storm clouds on my face, but still added, "If you don't want to answer, it's no big deal."
"No, that's… talking about it to not-professional people has helped, Piper, every time I've done it, and I like you a lot, so I'll tell you." I took a deep breath and said, "You've read Aunt Rose's book, and I know you asked Dad and Vi about all the stuff that's happened since, so you know that… well, I was born with the Slayer power."
"Yeah, I know," Piper said, and she giggled a little before saying, "I'll bet that made your 'terrible twos' a completely new level of 'terrible.' "
"To hear Mom and Dad tell it, you're now guilty of a serious understatement," I said, eliciting yet another laugh. "Thing is… I've been having issues this summer…."
I told Piper all of it, about the doubts and fears that had sprung up when I realized that I'd never actually been Chosen. Piper listened without interruption (we were sitting under a big tree on my front lawn when I finished), and her reaction surprised me, I admit it.
For a long moment after I finished talking, Piper simply stared at me in disbelief— then she shook her head and laughed, laughed hard and long. On seeing my confusion at this response, Piper shook her head, fought her laughter off, and spoke.
"Oh, man, that's insane!" Piper said, still chuckling, "I'm sorry if I've pissed you off, but I can't believe what I'm hearing, here!
"You know what I thought when I was watching you fight the Bug From Dimension X? The very first thing I thought?"
I shook my head, and Piper said, "I thought, 'holy crap, where the hell was this girl when I was fighting the Hulk?' "
I stared, and Piper smiled a little and said, "Okay, maybe that's something you shouldn't say to a friend— I wouldn't wish the Hulk on some of my enemies— but seriously, it's what I thought.
"I've seen you fight, Jocelyn Penobscot, and I'm here to tell you that that kind of ability? That knowing exactly how to use the things you can do, doing them without thinking or worrying? That translates to 'I'm pretty sure that she could take on Captain freaking America and not work up a sweat.'
"Well… okay, probably you'd work up a sweat.
"I thought you were the most completely amazing fighter I'd ever seen, and here you sit, doubting that you were really Chosen? Lady, that's just plain crazy!
"I've seen you in action, Jocelyn Penobscot, and you've got a gift, a… you know exactly what you can do, better than anybody alive except maybe Buffy and maybe— just maybe— Captain America, and that makes you a force to be reckoned with.
"And yet you're wondering if you're truly meant to have the Slayer power?
"Insane I said, insane I meant, and insane I'd say in front of Nick Fury, Captain America, J. Jonah Jameson, Aunt May and… and my Uncle Ben!
"You're a Slayer, lady— and amazing on top of that. You need to learn that— and I'll help if I can."
For a long moment, I just sat and stared at Piper, my mouth hanging open— then I moved Richter off of my lap and reached out to pull Piper into a hug.
She came willingly, hugged hard, and made no indication that she wanted me to let go of her anytime soon.
"Thank you," I managed to say after maybe a minute. My voice was ragged, on the edge of tears, because… because coming from Piper, from someone who was sort of looking from the outside of everything that I'd grown up inside, that meant a metric freaking ton. "I can't— there's no way— thank you!"
"You don't have to thank me," Piper said, her voice a little weepy, too. "Silly human, you're my friend— and you and your family are helping me. Least I can do is offer a little bit of payback-help."
"I'm going to thank you, so you're just gonna have to deal," I said, still all weepy-voiced. "Silly human."
Piper chuckled a little, held the hug another minute or so, until I relaxed. After we'd broken the hug, she said slowly, "Um. Could I… it really helps? Telling not professional people about what's bugging you, it really helps?"
"Yeah," I said softly. "I… Aunt Dawn pushed me into a corner and pretty much refused to take no for an answer until I told her, that was the first time, and… god, did it help! Then telling Colin and Mi Kyong at the same time… more help.
"Now you, and… I feel a little better, Piper. Really, I do."
"That's a good thing on me, then," Piper said, her voice steady. Then she spoke again, her voice lower and a little unsteady. "Do you think… I mean, what's bugging me is nowhere near as bad as what's bugging you, but if talking to a friend really helps…."
"It really does," I said softly. Then I gave her a mild glare and added, "And what's bugging you, whatever it is? It's just as serious as what's on my mind, Piper Benjamin, maybe more so— to you.
"I'll listen if you want to talk, now, later— ten years from now. And if you don't want to, if you're sitting there thinking 'I owe Jocelyn a confidence now,' well you just stop right there— because you don't owe me anything. You helped me by listening to me, by saying… all those amazing things you said in response.
"So no talking (or not talking, for that matter) because of some weird sense of obligation. Talk or don't— because you want to or don't."