To the Power Born: A Tale of the Slayers

Part 41: Pawn to Queen's Knight Eight

I sat and I felt sore and I realized just exactly how tough our Watchers and Guardians were, how strong they were, if this was how they felt after a hard mission and they kept going anyway.

Normal, I thought. I'm… normal. Ordinary. Just a girl. Still a Slayer, yes, I meant that when I said it to Mi Kyong, but not a super-powered girl anymore.

Or… am I a Slayer? Was it a mistake? Is this just… a correction, for me?

Oh, damn.

"First generation of Scythe-Called Slayers are now sans power," I said aloud. "Or at least I am."

Aunt Rose came into the room about then, said, "Giles— it's happened. We're normal, we first-Called girls. All of us here, me, Elaine, Chantelle… de-powered."

"So Jocelyn has informed us," Giles said— and Aunt Rose came straight to me and hugged me.

"It has to be harder for you, sweetie," Aunt Rose said against my ear. "You've never been anything but a Slayer, so being without that power, it must really suck— I'm sorry, Jocelyn."

"Thanks, Aunt Rose," I said just as quietly. Then I sat back and said louder, "You're right. This sucks. I hate it. I've never been normal before.

"But that means I've got to fight all the harder— and I'm game. We should probably start with breaking the force field around the damned Scythe, so maybe some people can get their power back."

Daddy came over, tugging Mom by the hand— and they both hugged the stuffing out of me.

"Jocelyn, that you're capable of thinking like that right now…." Daddy squeezed me extra hard for a second. "Thanks, honey."

"It's okay," I said. "It's not that big a deal."

"Ain't so," Mom said, and kissed both my cheeks. "We all got memories of bein' normal, honey, an' you don't— but you ain't freakin' at all."

"The hell you say!" I said, returning the kisses and adding a kiss for Daddy. "I'm freaking out all loud and violent in my head— but I'm using it. It's that or humiliate myself by dissolving into Weeping-Wailing Lass, and that would upset Ripley, so I won't do it."

"Good call," Daddy said, and hugged me again. Then he looked around the room and said, "She's right. We have to figure out what's happening to the Scythe, and we have to do it fast. Brian should be here in a minute, he's raiding the science labs for instruments— good call, Judith— and stuff to help him patch them into his computers."

I sat and I thought and I snuggled with my folks for the few minutes that it took Brian to arrive. While I sat there, Giles told us all about the attack on Angel, Faith and Helena, how Wesley had dusted Drusilla— YAY!— and Fred had managed to suck all the energy out of a Warren-bot. I actually giggled at the thought of small, frail-looking, painfully cute Winifred Wyndham-Pryce sucking the energy out of a Warren-bot, and giggles were in short supply just then.

Brian got there finally, pushing a wheelbarrow full of scientific instruments in front of him and looking worried.

"Got everything I could find, even scavenged some stuff— Dave, I tore out the burglar alarm sensors on the school, you might want to get them replaced later." Brian shook his head. "What I wouldn't give to be within a loud shout of Asimov Station and the equipment in their labs.

"Still… I may find something out. Let's find out."

Brian went to work, muttering to himself as he went, then muttering to Judith as she went to help as best she could, and asked about what he was doing. Daddy got up to talk to Giles, and Piper came over and snuggled up against me in his place.

I actually dozed. The loss of the Slayer power, after the exertions of the night before, that had me wiped out— and I dozed off.

I woke up when Brian said sharply, "Hello! I've got something!"

We all sat up straight and looked at him hopefully.

"What is it, Brian?" Giles asked.

"Motion, lots of motion," Brian said. "I patched the motion sensors from the burglar alarm into some other gizmos, and I've got motion all over the Scythe— like a moving skin, almost. Let me see… okay, Judith, give me those night-vision goggles there, and the microscope. Soldering iron, please… and the spectroscope, hello, baby, why didn't I think of you before.

"Okay, let's see… time to see if I can't do my Wesley Crusher impersonation. Take several random bits of technology, cobble them into what you need right this moment…. Wire cutters, please… thanks. And the soldering iron again… now, pull the cord out of that mouse, please…. Oh— wipe the horrified look, Judith, I mean the oval thing there that you see hooked up to computers. Thanks. And— oh, you're swift all right, soldering iron is just what I wanted."

For a couple of minutes or so, Brian kept on working, singing a little nonsense song softly to himself.

"Oh the spectroscope connects to the… goggles, the goggles connect to the… microscope. The microscope connects to the… motion sensor. The motion sensor connects to the… USB cord. The USB cord connects to the… laptop… the laptop waits for the… code-fiend."

Brian connected everything together into a trash-tech machine worthy of the comic-book super-villain of your choice, then patched everything to the laptop via the cord he'd had Judith pull from the spare computer mouse, then sat down at the laptop and started typing like mad.

"Don't argue with me, you worthless collection of code," he muttered after a moment. "I wrote your progenitor, you know! Ah, that's better… now, let's see what we can do to make a video-watching program capable of dealing with my new toy. We'll need focus control… and the ability to shift the observed spectrum… and zoom, much zoom. Hmm… add a little bit of Q-code to the volume controls, that should— ah! Houston, we have zoom control!

"Okey-dokey, let us see how I have wrought!"

He pressed several keys, and his contraption swung around and aimed itself at the globe more fully. An image appeared on the screen, a lot of blue, and Brian fiddled with the laptop for a moment, muttering "No, not the ordinarily visible spectrum, you silly machine— we're making the not-visible visible, don't you understand simple Q-code? And… jackpot!

"Oh— also 'oh, shit, he's smarter than I thought,' and 'this could be bad.' "

We all crowded around to see what Brian was trying to show us, and saw the Scythe… sort of rippling. It looked like it had some thick, heavy liquid over it in a thin coating, and the liquid was moving like a fairly calm sea, rippling softly. Through the coating, whatever it was, we could see that the Scythe looked… kind of like it had crystallized, or at least like the metal parts had. The leather wrapping on the handle looked normal, as did the stake at the butt of the handle, but all the metal look like it had turned to glass and that glass had been fractured all over.

"What the devil is that… that coating over the scythe?" Giles asked.

"Nanobots," Brian said, sounding depressed. "Microscopic robots, Giles, millions and millions of them. They're capable of performing operations on a molecular scale, even an atomic scale, moving atoms of things around, even changing the atoms. They're changing the material of the Scythe, and whatever they're changing it into can't hold the magics of the Guardians, can't generate the power it gives the Slayers.

"They must have been secreted in the Warren-bot you killed this morning, Buffy, and they jumped to the Scythe when you hit him with it."

"Can we stop them?" Giles asked.

"I can't see how," Brian said, his voice low and miserable. "Some of them are generating that force field, and I can't even identify the energy that makes up the field. Warren may have discovered a whole new spectrum, or even more than one spectra, and the energy… I can't even tell it's there, past the visual component."

"Damnation!" Giles said. "We've hit that field with every kind of energy we could, and that's including what Willow can generate, so includes virtually every type of energy there is."

"I'll keep working," Brian said. "I'll keep trying, Giles. Maybe… maybe if I can figure out a way to send programming info to the nanobots…."

Something tickled my brain, but it wouldn't quite come to the front. I thought I had something, but I couldn't tell what it was, and I didn't have time to just let it come— none of us had that kind of time.

"Ripley, honey?" I said to my pseudo dragon friend. "Sweetie, can you help me out?"

*I help— you tell how, I help,* Ripley said, moving from my shoulder to my hands when I held them up for her.

"Honey, I think I may be trying to have an idea about how to get that force field down," I said, so quietly that only Ripley would hear. "Thing is, I'm tense, hurt, scared and upset. I need to calm down, and I can't focus even on simple meditation techniques right now. Can you help me calm down? Please, sweetie?"

*I do,* Ripley said, and sat on my hands with her tail curled around her feet and her brass-colored eyes locked on mine. *I do easy. We make it right. I make you calm, you fix stupid machine-guy so this thing he made not work.*

I looked into my best friend's eyes, and she started singing as her people do, a bubbling, whistling little tune that sounds like birds singing under water. Even as she did that, her mind slipped into mine, found all my amped-up emotions and damped them down, like control rods in a nuclear pile. I felt calm coming, let it come, didn't try to help it, just let it come. Ripley's little song grew softer, and I felt my eyes getting heavy. They closed— and I saw a vision of Fred Wyndham-Pryce shoving a nightstick into a Warren-bot's gut, wires shooting out of the other end of the stick and hitting an elevator, and sparks and smoke and flames shooting everywhere. I felt-more-than-heard Ripley tell me that this was what Jet, Angel's pseudo dragon friend, had seen when Fred killed the Warren-bot that had threatened the LA group, and that this was what I was trying to think about.

I opened my eyes and Ripley stood up, leaned forward and nuzzled my lips, a pseudo dragon kiss.

*You do!* Ripley said, joy setting her whole body rippling. *I help, you do! You tell! Tell now!*

"May not work," I said.

*Feels right!* Ripley said. *Not tried, you tell!*

I set Ripley back up on my shoulder and stood. "Guys?" I said. "I have an idea. I almost didn't grab it, but Ripley, she was able to calm me down."

"What is it, Jocelyn?" Giles asked.

"We've hit that damned bubble with everything, up to and including things that science won't even admit exists, and it doesn't notice," I said, trying not to get my hopes too high. "But has anyone tried sucking the energy out? Draining the field?"

For a moment, no one said a word— then Willow said, "Holy shit! Dawn, Sh'rin, come over here— we need to work this out together.

"Jocelyn, we haven't tried that at all— and it may work!"

Mi Kyong sat bolt upright, pointed at me and cried, "The answer SUCKS! That's what he said before he asked me to give a message to Andrew, Jonathan said… wait, wait, let me get it all!"

Mi Kyong sat with her eyes closed for a moment, and I could see in Fog's posture where she sat on Mi Kyong's shoulder that she was helping, working at getting the memory out for her.

"In my Slayer dream, Jonathan was sitting at a table, and the Scythe lay on the table. He pointed at it and said, 'it's supposed to be forever. 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.'

" 'The answer sucks!' That has to mean that this is the right answer, the right way!"

I sat and stared at her and realized just how powerful a Slayer dream could be. The Powers had known that I'd be hurting and scared from losing my power, had known that if I refused to accept dark-red Ripley's offer of love and friendship in the wake of Royal's death, I'd never see the answer to Warren's attack on the Scythe… wow. One thing to read about that sort of thing in Aunt Rose's book, another to experience it in secondhand-person.

I got hugged and kissed and congratulated by damn near the whole room while Wil, Aunt Dawn and Aunt Sh'rin worked on the spell to suck the energy out of the force field.

"What about the nanobots themselves?" Xander asked. "If even one survives, can't this happen again?"

"Leave that to me," Colin said. "I already know how to make sure they all die. But I need it wrapped in a safe force field to make sure that none of the nanobots escape."

"What are you—" Xander started.

"No time," Wil said, coming out of her huddle. "We'll put it in a safe field, Colin, but Dawn and Sh'rin agree, the essence of the Guardians can't survive a lot longer. Xander, I trust Colin— and we need him now.

"Colin, you wield energies not normally a part of this universe— so we'd like to use you as a template, sort of— and a conduit. We'll take all the energy out of that force field and dump it into you. Won't hurt you, we'll protect you, and it may even charge you up some."

"Let's do it," Colin said. He squeezed my hand and Piper's hand, then went to float over the middle of the force field bubble when Willow told him to.

A moment later, Aunt Dawn, Aunt Sh'rin and Will sat in a triangle around the globe, and Willow moved the table aside with her telekinesis. As soon as she'd done that, Aunt Dawn unsheathed the Guardian's Blade and slid it to lay under the force field bubble— and they all three started chanting while Aunt Sh'rin drummed a beat on the floor beside her legs to keep them on tempo.

They chanted, all three in a round robin that became a single chant, and something started to happen. A tendril of blue light drifted up from the force field, turned gold-white, and joined the glow that surrounded Colin— and that glow got a little brighter.

Then the process accelerated, and the blue of the force field around the Scythe got dimmer and dimmer while Colin's glow got brighter and brighter—

— and the force field winked out. The Scythe dropped a couple of inches before Willow caught it telekinetically and a Scythe-tight, soft golden light surrounded it.

"Force field in place, do what you're gonna!" Willow said.

Colin dropped to the floor, snatched the Scythe out of the air and flew out of an open window in a rush of air. Less than a second later, we heard the sonic boom of Colin's acceleration.

Almost ten minutes crawled by, managed to feel like ten days, before we heard another boom— and a moment later, Colin climbed back in the window and said, "It's clean— they're all dead, you can de-force-field it and I'll incinerate the remains of the nanobots."

Willow lowered the force field she'd put around the Scythe but held it in mid air. What looked a lot like a pound or so of tiny iron filings fell towards the floor, but never made it. Colin burned them as they fell.

"What did you do to kill the nanobots?" Xander asked.

"I went home," Colin said, grinning. "I took the Scythe to Scooby Mansion, and the enchantment the triple threat put up to destroy all Warren-made tech annihilated the nanobots completely."

"Dear lord, that's a brilliant solution!" Giles said. "Thank you, Colin— once again, you have more than earned your place with us."

"The Guardians?" Buffy asked, her voice tense.

~We… survive,~ said that soul-touching voice that most of us had heard before— and we all sagged in relief. ~We are weakened, and will take time to recover— but we survive.

~Thank you, all of you, for preserving us and our magics. It will be some time before we can re-empower all the Slayers we have Chosen down the years, perhaps a week… but it will be done. For now… we must rest, renew this our home, repair it that it may withstand the energies we grant the Slayers.

~Yet… there is need of what power we can manifest, and the need is urgent. We will rest for a short while… then empower those we can. Not many— but perhaps enough to end the threat that comes.

~While we rest… summon all those of your family who were present when first our daughter Sh'rin came through to this now. Bring those not here to this place in… two hours. And all in this room who have had the Slayer power, bring them as well. All. No exceptions. All.

~We are diminished… but still we can see, we can Call… and we will choose most carefully those we Call, choose only the best, for you will need the very best of the Chosen to do what needs be done… and even then, we will have to ask for help from he who has already helped us once. Starpulse… we will need you.~

"Then you'll have me," Colin said. He smiled a cold, hard smile and said, "I want a piece of Warren anyway."

~It is well,~ the Scythe said. ~Also, Spider-woman… the Prime spoke rightly when she told you that you are a Slayer at heart. Had you no power of your own, you would be Chosen next summer-eve, but you have the power you need— and your skill with that power is more than sufficient. We will ask your help, as well.~

"You've got it." Piper smiled a little and said, "Probably a good thing you don't need to give me power— I used to be a boy."

~You are a woman, now,~ the Scythe said calmly. ~You have accepted that, and become a woman in heart and head, as well as body. Had you need of the power we could grant, we would give it, and never mind what once you were. What you are… is a woman.~

Piper looked kind of stunned, but she nodded and said in a very small voice, "Thank you."

~As the Father has been known to say, there is no need to thank us for telling you what you have earned the right to hear.~ The voice sounded amused while it said that, but sobered as it went on, ~We rest now. Bring she who was there when Sh'rin came through. When we are rested… we will summon you.~

The voice fell silent— and Aunt Dawn and Aunt Sh'rin both burst into tears of sheer, blind relief.

Willow hugged them both, then said, "Giles, call LA— we need Faith here, they want her here. And Rose, find Elaine, she'll need to be here, too."

People started bustling, and I took my leave, went outside with my lovers, and we sat under a tree and snuggled. I fell asleep, big surprise.

When I woke, Uncle Ethan had finally arrived to join us, as my psychic little sister had said he should— he'd been out of our dimension, in the realms of the Fey, trying to make peace between two factions, guiding a team of Slayers in helping prevent more bloodshed while he worked, and only just gotten back— and people were freaking because Brian had found out what Warren and Catherine were going to try to do, at least in the rough.

Brian had found an undamaged robot head in the rubble gathered by the Slayers, or mostly undamaged, and managed to access some of its memory. What he found… horrified.

Warren intended to bomb Normal somehow, to focus on Scooby Mansion and the Seat of the Watchers' Council, but whatever it was he intended to do— we didn't know for sure, not yet— would do monstrous damage to a huge area around there, kill thousands, maybe millions of people. Unfortunately, we had no specifics, but Brian was still trying.

As for Catherine… Belinda, in a vision from the Powers, had said that Catherine would 'repeat another's mistake'— and she wasn't kidding. Catherine Madison intended to perform the ritual her daughter had been attempting just before she died; the Ritual of the Gaping Way. She was going to open another Hellmouth, in Bloomington. Thing is, a second Hellmouth too close to another— closer than two thousand miles or so— causes all sort of horrible dimensional foul-ups. If she did it, either Hellmouths would open up all over the world, spaced every two-to-four hundred miles or so, or one GIGANTIC Hellmouth would open that covered the whole space between Bloomington and Cleveland, where the next closest one lay. If that happened, the hole would be big enough for the Elder Demons, the ones who'd ruled our dimension for millennia, would be able to return to Earth— and we'd all die under their most casual attacks.

We knew all this was true, too— because Belinda had said, "listen to the head, because it can't lie."

I could get behind the whole freak-out thing, you know?

Then the soft, vibrating shrill of the Scythe sounded the call, and I let all of that go and went to see who would be re-activated to try to end this threat.

We all gathered in the study of the house that was the center of the Montana branch of the Giles Academy— all the Slayers who'd come here to fight, all the Watchers and Guardians, Faith was there, looking sexy as hell in her Slayer armor, and all my lovers, and Ian and Joyce, even Uncle Ethan.

~We are ready,~ the Scythe said when we arrived. ~We can empower but seven— but with Judith Holmes, whom we would have Chosen next Summer-Eve had she not received the original Slayer power, and Piper Benjamin, who is a Slayer by both temperament and power, you will be nine. That may be sufficient unto the day.

~Now… the Calling begins.~

We all stood, frozen by nerves, waiting and wondering— and after a moment that only seemed to last hours, the Scythe went on.

~Buffy Harris, once Buffy Summers, you are the Prime. We say to you that we are pleased to give you the power of the Slayer once again— and now you may say that you have been Chosen by both kinds of Slayer power.~

Buffy shuddered— and whispered, "Thank you."

~But you will not be alone in this twin Calling, Prime.

~Faith Kilpatrick, once Faith Lehane, who is the Renewed… you have learned much down the many years. Most importantly, we feel, you have learned to love— and you will fight for that love, fight hard and with all your being— as you love with your whole being. You, too, are Called.~

Faith shuddered as Buffy had, then said, "Thanks. Thank you." She looked at Buffy, grinned a wicked grin, and said, "Well, the Team Supreme rides again, right, B?"

Buffy snickered and nodded.

~Rose Killian and Elaine Marshall, who are as close to one soul as any in two bodies can be,~ the Scythe said, sounding dreamy and sort of caught up in the palpable romance between those two. ~The Undefeated and the Dancer, two Slayers who share one heart… you are Called.~

My aunts shivered a little, joined hands, and said in unison, "Thank you. We're ready."

Then everything in my world changed.

Remember back a ways, when I said that Judith's logic, while it had helped me get past some of my doubt and upset over not having been Chosen, couldn't help me get past all of that hurt and doubt in one leap? That I'd have to have something "huge, huge and powerful, even magical," to do that?

Something huge happened. Huge and powerful, and very definitely magical.

~Jocelyn Penobscot,~ the Scythe said, and I felt the attention of the many minds that dwelled in it on me. ~Though we did not tell our daughter Sh'rin so, for fear of giving her too much knowledge of the future she would experience, we had for you a name like those we gave other members of your family. We saw your birth, saw what you would become, what you would do— and we rejoiced to find two who would be such dedicated Slayers in you and your mother. We rejoiced, and we Chose your mother then, rather than wait a year, that we might have a hand in making you what you are: The Blaze. You burn with a need to become all that a Slayer can become, and you will fulfill your need.

~You are Called, Daughter of the Knight, Daughter of the Genuine— and never again let yourself doubt that we Chose you as well and carefully as we Chose your mother.

~Burn, child. Be the Blaze!~

Power ran into me, filled me, and I welcomed that old friend with a shudder of delight and a crazy mix of laughter and tears— though both came from nothing but joy.

"Thank you!" I laugh-sobbed. "Thank you! I won't doubt, I'll never have to doubt, not anymore!"

~It is well,~ the Scythe said, and I felt its attention shift. ~Chantelle Penobscot, once Chantelle Rostov, always and forever the Genuine, refusing to hide who you are and who you want to be… you have a gift that you have shared with your daughter, and that gift of the hunter's eye and arm will be needed— as will your warrior's heart. You are Called.~

Mom shivered a little, grinned and said, "Looks like it's 'bring your daughter to work day,' huh, folks?"

~You speak more truly than you know,~ the Scythe said. ~Now… we make a choice that may frighten and upset. We cannot do otherwise though, for this is a part of what must happen if the world is to be safe.

~To the Prime and the Heart we say that we and the Powers above us will do all we can to preserve she who is our final choice for this work that lies ahead— but that Joyce Harris, the Complete, must be a part of what comes, if there is to be a complete success.~

Joyce shivered, gasped aloud, and said, "I… thank you," before she pulled her father over to her mother, stood between them as they shared a look of worry, and held both their hands tightly.

~For now, this is all we can do, for the Machine hurt us badly,~ the Scythe said. ~Remember what we have said— and what you were told by the sister of the Blaze and daughter of the Genuine, for she spoke truly.

~Go now. Save your world. Be true to your Calling.

~Each day, at the original hour of the Activation, we will Call those we can, until all are restored— but you must work with what you have, for now.

~Go and save your world.~

For a long moment, silence reigned— then I got hit from all sides with hugs and kisses and shouts of congratulations. Then, over it all, I heard Buffy shout at the top of her lungs, "JOCELYN KELLY PENOBSCOT, I TOLD YOU SO!"

I laughed aloud, worked my way to Buffy and wrapped her in a hug. "Yes, you did!" I laughed. "You did, and I promise, next time? I'll listen!"

We started to calm down, and I sat on Daddy's lap, held Mom and Colin's hands, and realized that I really was a Slayer. I'd been Chosen, and like Aunt Rose said in the title of her book about the Battle of Bloomington, I'd damn well stand!

Everything that had been bothering me was gone, and I felt things in my mind shifting, old paths clogged by doubt and insecurity opening up again.

It. Felt. HEAVENLY!

When Buffy said, "Okay, we need to figure out the rest of what's going on, so we can stop it. Time for a council of war," Judith proved that she was very, very much her parents' daughter, and prevented us from making a mistake.

"Wait, not here!" Judith said. The others looked at her, and she said, "Warren can… 'bug' is the term, I believe— he can use listening devices in this place, and probably has some in place. I believe we should reverse how we got here. Additionally, there are more weapons at home."

"Yep," Xander said with a grin. "She's a Holmes. Good call, Judith."

"Colin?" Aunt Dawn said, hefting her bag of magical supplies.

"On the way," Colin said, scooping her up. "Home is an easy find, and I've been there from here once today— less than five minutes."

Very soon, we were gathering for a council of war in the library at Scooby Mansion. No sooner had we sat down than Aunt Elaine's cell phone rang. She reached to shut it off, and we all heard Charm, her pseudo dragon friend, cry, *No, answer! Is… emergency! One of my people tries to send to me to tell why you must answer, but must be so far off, very faint. Answer!*

Aunt Elaine answered the phone, and put it on speaker from the beginning. "Elaine Marshall-Innes."

"Elaine, thank god!" said the slightly tinny voice of Spider Robinson, the man who, with his wife, had written the novel that inspired Aunt Elaine to dance in space. "Listen, I've seen that guy, the robot guy, the one who killed Buffy and Xander's son! He's here, on Asimov Station!"

"Warren's there!?" Aunt Elaine said, shocked.

"Yes, you showed me the picture of him, remember?" Spider said. "I've seen him four times today, in separate parts of the damned station. I've been trying to call you for a while, you must have been out of the reception range."

"Holy crap," Xander said, clapping a hand to his forehead. "Belinda! She said the web-guy would be calling, and we had to listen or… or…."

" 'And the web-guy, he'll be calling and you have to listen— or it all falls down,' " Judith quoted.

"Yeah, that's it, thanks!" Xander said. "Web-guy— Spider!"

"All right, Spider, we'll get someone up there as soon as we've made some plans," Elaine said. "Probably not via shuttle, so don't go trying to meet those. I'll call you when we're ready to leave, and you can arrange to meet us."

"All right," Spider said. "Good luck, lady. And no getting killed! I haven't seen you dance live, yet!"

"All right, Spider, I'll remember," Aunt Elaine said with a chuckle, and hung up.

"Thoughts?" Buffy said.

"I have one, and I hate the hell out of it," Brian said. He'd sat at a computer and was typing madly. "One sec… oh, crap, I think I'm right.

"I think he's going to bring Asimov Station out of orbit— and drop it on us."

"Oh, shit," Buffy said. "Colin? Can you get a team up there?"

"Damn straight," he said. "The shelter's in the garage, and the air supply's full, I recharged it after taking Spider upstairs."

"Good," Buffy said. "Now all we need to do is find Catherine— surely she won't be stupid enough to work in the same place Amy did."

"Leave that to me," Uncle Ethan said, smiling a smile that was more than half smirk. "This is a day of balance, love, the Autumnal Equinox. What Catherine is doing will knock things quite out of balance— and for an old chaos-lover like me, finding that shan't be much of a chore."

"Get to it, then, thanks," Buffy said.

"I'll work in the basement here," Ethan said. "Give me… fifteen minutes."

Uncle Ethan strode out, and we all turned back to Buffy.

"Okay," Buffy said. "Two teams, and the groundside team is the bigger.

"Rose, Elaine, you know the Station, and you know low-and-zero gravity movement. Take Faith and Chantelle for additional Slayer power and scary accuracy. Colin, you work with them— you're vacuum-proof if something goes wrong, on top of being their only ride up there. For Watchers— Ballard, you and Vincent. He learns physical stuff super-fast, so he shouldn't be too put-off by the gravity. For magical oomph, you take Sh'rin. We need Willow and Dawn down here, Wil's our best shot against Catherine's magic."

I had a flash of insight, and I said, "Buffy, wait— no. Send Willow and Aunt Sh'rin upstairs. Keep Wil as far from Catherine as you can."

"Jocelyn, I don't think—" Buffy started.

"No, listen," I said, and stood. "Catherine hates Willow more than anyone else, hates her so much it's scary. Seeing Willow, knowing Willow's around, even, that will just push Catherine harder— and make her more likely to succeed."

"Jocelyn, I don't know if—" Buffy started again— and Judith interrupted.

"I do beg your pardon, Buffy," Judith said, "But the Scythe told us to listen to the things Belinda said, one of which was, 'you have to trust confusion's end. You have to let the reborn follow what she knows to be true, even if it make no sense.'

"Jocelyn's second calling has ended her confusion over whether or not she was meant to be a Slayer— and look at her, tell me she doesn't seem totally 'reborn.'

"While you may think that leaving Willow out of the assault on Mrs. Madison makes no sense… it is what Belinda told us to do, after a fashion."

Buffy hesitated a moment, then said, "Damn. Okay, you're both right. Willow, you get to be the Good Witch of Outer Space."

"Okay, Buffy," Willow said. "I'm good with that, listening to the Powers and all."

"My team," Buffy said, "is Jocelyn, Piper, Judith and Joyce for Slayers (and reasonable facsimiles thereof), Giles, Xander, Kelly and Whitey for Watchers, Dawn for magic. We'll need some START people— Graham?"

(We'd brought the whole platoon home with us, of course.)

"What's mine is yours," he said. "Where do you want us?"

"One squad with the entry team, the rest outside, under command of Lydia and Vi," Buffy said. "Andrew for magic, and his girls can help, too— maybe they aren't powered right now, but they're still trained to hell and gone."

"Got it," Graham said. "I'm going in with you— rank hath its privileges, etc."

"You define 'privileges' oddly," Buffy said. She looked around at all of us, nodded once, and said, "Okay— space team, go. The rest of us will take off as soon as Ethan tells us where we're going.

"Wait— we need someone from here to go to Scotland to brief them. Watchers, decide amongst yourselves who goes."

They ended up drawing straws for it, and Kelly lost. Or won, depending on how you look at it. Before the space team left, Willow coordinated with a witch on Robson's team in Edinburgh and Kelly went through (after lots of goodbye hugs and kisses), grumbling about having to miss the action as she went.

A lot of hugs and kisses later, Colin lifted the space-side team towards Asimov Station, and the rest of us waited to find out where we'd have to go to stop Catherine Madison from unleashing hell on Earth— literally.