To the Power Born: A Tale of the Slayers
Part 47: Flames
In the Trap:
Thanks to Alex's and Chief's ghosts scouting for her, Joyce Harris was making decent time through the little "hack and slash dungeon" that Warren Mears had prepared for her— but not too good. She had on a watch, knew how to look at it without being obvious, and did so in every room. She'd then pretend to dither over the choice until a couple of seconds before a room became a deathtrap, keeping one eye on the time-to-being-gassed. In those oh-so-precious seconds of time when she wasn't doing anything like trying to stay alive, she talked to her brother, telepathically, through Chief.
"Room seventeen," Alex said, pulling his head back through the door on her left and looking over his shoulder at Joyce, "has a D'winij demon— spider-looking thing, body about the size of a Bassett Hound, legs around two and half feet long each. It's on the ceiling over the door right across from this one."
Okay, I know how to handle that, thanks, Joyce thought to Chief, who echoed her words to Alex almost as fast as she sent them. So… will I see you again? After you get me through this, I mean. Is that… will I see you guys again?
"Can't say for sure," Alex said, shrugging and looking a little uncomfortable. "Not about… you know, while you're alive. I mean… They say that it's not good for you to… you know, get hung up on me.
"Time's low. Go kill the spider-thing, then I'll pick this up."
Joyce went to the door that Alex had indicated, opened it, looked around, spotted the spider-demon, tossed her sword to her left hand, drew a stake from her belt with her right and threw it at the D'winij as it dropped to the floor. The stake hit the monster in one eye— butt-first, but still, it hurt the thing enough to give Joyce time to kill it with a quick stab from the silver-coated blade of her sword.
"Anyway," Alex said cheerfully as he looked through the next door to the right, to make sure that the demon in there hadn't moved or been swapped, then pulled his head back and looked at Joyce. "It's not good for you to be too wrapped up in having me around, Sis. I get that, and I agree, that's right. I mean— Mom misses Grandma Summers, but she doesn't dwell on it, you know?
"So I don't think you'll see me after this— much." Alex again gave her his signature too-big-grin, then said, "Unless, of course, you get into a sitch where the Powers feel the need to smack you with a Slayer dream. Then… well, you know, those can be full of scary stuff, so when it's possible, the Powers like to make that easier by sending the info through someone familiar.
"You get a Slayer dream? I'll be around. Past that… well, we'll meet up when you're through here, which had better be a long time off, or I'll kick your ass, and never mind that you're a Slayer.
"So if you've got any big things to say, you better say them before we go after Robo-Stooge, okay, Joyce?
"Other side of this door, a vamp who's smoking a big old stogey, in the corner to your left."
Okay, I guess… I see their point, Joyce sent to Chief as she recovered her stake, then moved to the door Alex had indicated. But… nothing big, Alex. Just that… I'm gonna get sappy before you go, so you're warned.
"I can deal," Alex said, and he smiled a smaller, more quiet smile (one that, had Buffy seen it, she'd have recognized as the exact same smile his father wore when the kids made him especially proud) as his sister swept through the door and went after the vampire in the room. "I won't even complain, Sis. This time."
Joyce smacked the cigar that the vampire was holding to his mouth with the flat of her sword, sending a shower of sparks at the vamp's face, blinding the thing and making it roar in pain. She staked the vampire neatly, then stepped back and breathed deeply, looking around at the doors in the room as though Alex wasn't already saying, "Straight ahead this time, pair of zombies, standing stupid in the middle of the room."
A minute ago, you said we were going after Warren, Alex, Joyce thought as she visibly dithered over the choice she didn't have to make. What do you mean?
"He can't see me, Sis," Alex said, smiling a smile that, had Xander seen it, would have caused him to step back— it was the smile Buffy wore right before monsters she really hated started dying at her hands. "And I'm not solid, despite looking that way.
"But both of those? I can change them for a little while— and when we get to him, I'm damned sure gonna!"
Joyce smiled her own Buffy-in-Full-Slayer-Mode smile and thought, I like that idea. I like that idea a whole lot!
She went to the door into room number nineteen, flung it open, and sighed audibly. "Zombies. I hate zombies!"
Then she was moving, and the ghost of Alex Harris stood back to watch his sister take the "un-" out of undead.
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Jocelyn:
It was a plain white place, not really a room, just a place— no features at all.
Unless, of course, you counted the seven women standing off to one side, all of them as real and solid as me, but dressed for Long Ago, for a time before "once upon a time," even. They were all different ages, one looking only a little older than me, one looking ninety years older than, say, dinosaurs. The shortest was under five feet, the tallest almost six feet. The woman in front looked a healthy forty, had an absolute mane of wild brown hair that hung to her knees, big dark eyes, and a staff that had been heavily carved with symbols and runes.
I bowed to those seven women, deeply, the scythe laying across my forearms, my eyes up and on the woman in the center. They all bowed back, even the older ones, and when we all straightened, the woman at front and center of their group spoke.
"You have found your way," that woman said. "It is well.
"Know that while you are in this state of being, no time will pass in the world you work so mightily to save, Jocelyn. You will have to leave here between learnings, but you will be able to get back in on your own, you will not again need Hope's Favored to help you achieve this state of oneness with the Scythe.
"What you need in order to learn will appear as you need it, Daughter of the Genuine and the Knight.
"Know also that this will not work after we begin empowering the others. Once there are more than a dozen or so Slayers, the… connection that is imparted by the Scythe is dimmed too much for this level of communication… and communing.
"Now… Blaze, child!"
And they vanished, just like that.
I took a deep breath, and I thought about it. I knew what to do, and that I could do it, but it might be best to start with something that I was a natural at, and, while I am a natural marksman, my mom? Way better than me, still. Okay. I'd start the learning with Mom.
"Mom…." I said it aloud, my eyes closed, thinking of her. I thought of hugging her, how she'd taught me that either you hugged all out, whole-body-whole-attention, or you just didn't bother, of how patient she was with me, even when I was being a brat, of how easily she took to teaching other newbies the basics of archery, knife throwing, and stake throwing. I thought of her laugh, and how when she was either delighted or upset, her voice started getting more deeply Southern. "Mom, I need some help."
"Well, honey, I reckon I can help with whatever you need," my mom said from right in front of me, and I felt her arms slide around me as she pulled me close to hug me. "But maybe you should oughtta tell me where the hell we are an' how the hell we got here, first?"
"Yes, ma'am!" I laughed, hugging her fiercely. "It's the Scythe, Mom. The connection we all feel sometimes? Because there are so few of us using that connection, right now, I can use the Scythe to… well, to bring me and another Slayer together, any of the active ones. And time? In here, we've got technically all the time there is, and no time's passing out there— so I can get all the training you can give me, Mom, on throwing and shooting and… well, anything else you can teach me to make me a better Slayer.
"I'm going to have to be the best Slayer I can be, Mom, because what I've got to get through to get to Catherine Madison… Mom, it's a sitch that, to be blunt, I don't think Buffy could get through right now.
"But if I learn everything you can teach me about throwing and shooting, about choosing targets, and— and whatever else you can teach me, and then do that with Aunt Rose and swords and general fighting, and Aunt Elaine and Capoeira and acrobatics and dancing— hell, just anything she can teach me about moving— and Faith and letting my instincts do what they have to without shutting off my brain, and then go to Buffy and get her to teach me to put all that together…?
"Then maybe I can do what I have to, maybe I can get to that witch before she kills the world."
" 'The Blaze,' " Mom said, her voice soft and proud. She kissed my cheek, grinned and said, "Let's start with knives, sugar, an' work our way up."
I turned to look behind me, and the white was gone, replaced with an indoor target range, and racks upon racks of things to be thrown or shot, though nothing that was powered by more than simple leverage— crossbows, basically. No guns, we Slayers don't use them.
"Okay, Mom," I said, and followed her to the closest weapons rack, which had knives of all shapes and sizes on it.
That's how it started. That's how the fire inside me found the fuel it needed in order to burn.
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Eastland Mall, Aboveground:
Dawn, with the help of the Amberites Fiona and Merlin, found the place where the demons were entering the mall in only a few minutes of spell-work. Because their magics were of a type that could be dangerous with the way various "shadows" (just "other worlds" to Dawn) were crossing over, Dawn had to work the closing mostly by herself, though she discovered that Fiona was excellent at checking her working for flaws, and Merlin could offer alternative power sources for the magic. This made her feel better about the things she was doing, because by not drawing too heavily on what Dawn thought of as the ambient magic of her own world, not processing that through her mind and soul, she reduced the risk of using too much power— of going Dark.
Unfortunately, either Catherine Madison had no such worries or the energies she was using were opening other passages as a side effect of their use. Ten minutes after Dawn shut off the access point that various monsters and demons were using to get to the mall to attack Team Slayer, START and their otherworldly allies, barely three minutes after the last of that incursion, more demons arrived— and the battle was joined again.
This time, the surge was bigger, as though the demons had kept trying to come through for the ten minutes that their way had been blocked, and when the way opened, overpressure sent more through faster.
The fighting got nasty, and the small teams that had been established had mostly been broken up by the brief rest the defenders had gotten between waves. Buffy found herself fighting side-by-side with Xander, working their way towards Judith Holmes, who was fighting next to Whitey and a trio of START soldiers. River Tam stood between her brother the doctor and his patients and a wave of incoming demons, a half a dozen lightly wounded soldiers helping her keep the monsters from overwhelming those who couldn't defend themselves, aided by the little guy who seemed to be in charge of the Amberites and the blond woman who fought so very efficiently with saber and poniard.
Buffy didn't see Giles, or Graham, or Dawn and her two Amberite helpers, but that wasn't surprising— the furball was thick and nasty, and there wasn't time to look everywhere, not if she wanted to survive and keep as many of her team alive as possible.
Then Buffy heard a shout, heard Giles— a trained singer, with a singer's projection— cry "DAWN, LOOK OUT!"
She turned back towards the place near the T-junction some fifty yards away, where Dawn, Fiona and Merlin had gone to close down the demons' access, and were now working again, saw Dawn raise a hand as she said a single word, and the incoming streak of painfully bright purple energy that had been headed for her ricocheted up and over the trio.
Then Buffy saw Giles, fighting alone, standing over an injured or dead START soldier with his longsword, saw the influx of demons that had noticed him thanks to his shout— and she started to run that way, because he was only one man, only human, and there were so many of them.
Too many.
"GILES!" Buffy yelled. "HANG ON, I'M COMING!"
She ran faster, leapt up on the wide wooden railing that separated the mall's floor from a series of now-inactive fountains along the wall, and when the demons between her and her Watcher noticed her and started to try to intercept her, Buffy simply leapt into the air, jumped over the reaching demons, leapt farther than she had since… since the day the Scythe had activated all the potential Slayers around the world, when she'd managed outrun the collapse of Sunnydale into the monstrous pit that was all the closing of that Hellmouth left behind and leap onto a speeding bus.
It wasn't enough.
Even as Buffy hit the floor some twenty feet from the crowd of demons surrounding her Watcher, she saw a vampire grab him from behind and pin his sword arm for just a moment, long enough for another demon, something with claws long enough to use for rulers, to slam its claws into Giles's torso, right below the sternum— and angled up.
Then it jerked those claws out, and Giles's abdomen seemed to explode.
"NO!" Buffy screamed, anger, fear, sadness and loss tearing through her.
Giles let out a single harsh coughing sound, wrenched his arm free of the vampire, beheaded the demon that had just effectively killed him— and collapsed to the ground.
Buffy hit the group then, fists and feet flying, the broad sword she'd grabbed from the hand of a dead Hurkulpo (that had been using the sword like a the dagger it looked like in the monstrous demon's hand) slashing and stabbing so fast that the few monsters who survived her initial assault simply fled.
Buffy dropped beside Giles, saw him open his eyes— and smile up at her.
Somehow, he managed to gather the breath to speak. "This is not your fault," Giles said, his voice soft, but utterly implacable. "It isn't Dawn's fault, or… anyone's really."
"Giles, stop talking, just hang on—"
"Buffy." She stopped talking herself, and met the eyes of the man who had been her father in all but blood for the last twenty-one years. "No man… could have hoped… for better daughters than Rose… Elaine… poor, lost Laurie… Dawn… and you, my dear child. Or a more wonderful son… than Riley."
Xander knelt beside Buffy, started emptying the first aid pouch on his belt— then stopped when he really looked at the disaster that was Rupert Giles's torso. "Oh, god, no."
"Xander." Giles smiled. "Son. The Council… it's yours now. You… lead them. Care for them….
"You two… take care of Kelly and Riley… Dawn… Rose… Elaine… Joyce… each… other.
"I…."
Rupert Giles tried to say something more, but even his near-legendary force of will could not keep his consciousness in his ruined body any longer.
Even as Xander sobbed harshly, he reached up and closed the eyes of the greatest Watcher the world had ever known.
Buffy… Buffy stood up, screamed in a mixture of rage and pain— and started killing monsters, using those emotions so effectively that soon, monsters again started to retreat from her, to simply flee from the worst nightmare they had ever encountered.
Then they were gone, and Dawn was there, grabbing Buffy and sobbing, and things got blurry for a time….
The battle seemed to be over, at least for the moment, and the remains of Team Slayer, START and their allies gathered around the body of Rupert Giles, now mercifully covered by the jacket of a START soldier.
No one said anything for a long moment, then Xander spoke.
"Someone get his body back to the planter where the kids vanished," he said, his voice unsteady at first, but growing more calm as he went on. "There is no way in hell that we're leaving him here, but I don't want… there's no need to distract the team at the entrance by… moving him up there."
Without a word, Graham himself stepped forward, scooped up Giles's body, and carried it back to the planter.
"This is… awful." Xander gulped once, then said more loudly, "This is awful. It's… I can't even say how much this hurts.
"But there are two things that we need to do now. First, we need to…. Everyone needs to know, to understand, that this? This is no one's fault except Warren Mears's and Catherine Madison's. Period. None of us are to blame, and so help me Zeus, if I see or hear any of you looking or sounding like you want to try and take the blame for it, or put it on anyone who isn't Warren or Catherine, I will— I will find a way to let Giles's ghost know, and have him haunt you!
"Second… we need to get ready, because this? It's not the end of the battle. It's just intermission.
"We've still got a world to save— and we're going to do just that!
"Whitey! Work with Graham, get START teams organized to back up you and Judith, me and Buffy, all the groups we're going to form, now.
"All other groups are a minimum of three people before START backup, and I don't really care who you are or whether you're a king or a captain— this is the kind of fight that me and mine know how to fight, and we're going to fight it. Your help is welcome— on our terms. You can't do that, get on the sidelines."
No one argued, they just moved to obey his orders— and Xander took a moment to reach for his wife, hug her tightly, and tremble.
"You're doing… you sounded just like Giles just now, Xander," Buffy said, and she looked up at him. "I… needed that. Thanks."
"Yeah, well, I just— Buffy, I'm scared out of my tiny rabbit mind, okay?" Xander said, and he shivered once. "I don't know if I can—"
"Stop right there!" Buffy said, her voice quiet, but hard. "Alexander Harris, Giles chose you for a reason!
"It was the right choice, Xander. You're the right choice. You know how seriously I take this, that if I didn't think you were the man for the job, I'd tell you that.
"But you are the right man. You gave the right orders, and I let you, despite the fact that only Slayers are supposed to give orders— because they were the right ones."
Xander met his wife's eyes for a moment, then said, "Okay. Okay, Buffy.
"Sorry, I just—"
Buffy let out a small sound, then, a little gasp of surprise, and said in a small voice, "Wait, I feel… Jocelyn?"
Then white light went off behind the Prime Slayer's eyes, and she found herself somewhere else.
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Jocelyn:
After what felt like weeks, maybe even months of training, unbroken by breaks for food or sleep— in the place that I thought of as "inside the Scythe," I never felt hungry, thirsty, tired, or anything— broken only by frequent breaks for just sitting and talking or snuggling with Mom, we said our goodbyes, hugged long and hard, and Mom… just vanished. I closed my eyes, thought of the world outside, and was there when I opened my eyes.
As soon as I opened my eyes, I started… well, something between a hard shiver and a vibration. It shocked poor Ian, who let go of me— he was still there, holding on to my wrists— and stepped back, then said, "Jocelyn, are you okay?"
I let the shuddering vibration that was my muscles absorbing everything that my mind had just learned from my mom finish— that took a few more seconds— then said, my voice calm, if a little unsteady, "I'm fine, Ian— and I can't take time to explain.
"You did it. You got me started. Thank you— but I can do the rest, now, go help the others. I should be joining you… really soon. Just got some more to learn, first."
Ian looked at me oddly, then said softly, "Ooooh. I get it. 'Burn, baby, burn!' "
I laughed and said, "Yeah. Time to feed the flames some more," and Ian grinned and turned back towards the battle.
Even as I closed my eyes, Harry Dresden hollered, "You have got to be kidding me— sending vampires against the wizard who's been known to shout FUEGO!"
I heard the roar of flames, the shriek-and-paff of a lot of vampires dusting, and Piper laughed and said, "Holy crap, Johnny Storm should be jealous, Harry!"
I grinned, focused on the Scythe, and found myself again in the white place outside of time. I took a deep breath and thought of my Aunt Rose, tiny, fierce Aunt Rose who had taught me ninety-five percent of everything I knew about using the sword on my back, most of what I knew about using a spear, half of what I knew about staff fighting, a third of my hand-to-hand skills— and who had turned me on to Terry Pratchett's Discworld, the Codex Alera and the Atticus Kodiak novels. Aunt Rose, whose skill with violence was equaled by her skill with words, whose sheer guts and determination were why my world was lucky enough to have pseudo dragons in it, and who was one of only four people who could regularly keep up with me at "Slayer Trivial Pursuits."
"Homina ho-boy!" Aunt Rose gasped as she appeared in the again-empty white place with me. I reached for a hug, and she reached back, hugged me tightly, and said, "What goes on, Jocelyn?"
"First, time doesn't exist here— it'll be like you blinked really fast when you go back.
"Second… Aunt Rose, things are about to get a kind of ugly that I never thought I'd have to face, Battle of the First and Battle of Bloomington ugly, all at once— and I need to be better than I am if I'm going to get to Catherine Madison to stop her.
"Third… sword and hand-to-hand… teach me all of both of them that you know, please?"
Aunt Rose grinned, looked around at the white place that had suddenly become a fully equipped martial arts school with the equipment she used to teach kung fu and that Dad used to teach Hwa Rang Do, and said, "Okay, grasshopper, let's start by reviewing what you already know, then we can go from there."
I grinned— and added still more fuel to the fire.
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Again, I opened my eyes and did that shiver-shudder-vibrate thing as my muscles absorbed all that Aunt Rose had just taught me, and I took a moment to glance around. Ian was just finishing his turn back to the battle, going to stand halfway between Harry Dresden, who now had a shorter stick in his right hand, his staff in his left, and Piper, who was fighting eight or nine demons at once— and laughing as she did so.
As I watched for a sec, Piper leapt above them, landing on the shoulders of two, webbed the rest heavily in place with web sprayed from her fingers, then flipped to the ground behind the two she'd stood on, grabbed their heads, and slammed them together with a sound like two concrete blocks being smacked together by a strong man. As they fell, Piper waded into those she'd webbed, grabbed her axe off of her hip and began to behead the others.
I smiled, knowing that so far, my friends— old and new— were kicking ass and taking names, and closed my eyes.
Aunt Elaine. Aunt Elaine, who had become, in my mind, grace personified, who moved with a fluidity that dolphins had to envy, whose every move was a dance. Aunt Elaine, who had taken a childhood dream and made it real, who had given the world Dance the Heavens Home and Souls, Like Scattered Stars…. Aunt Elaine, for whom Capoeira was even more of a "core fighting style" than it was for me, who, as much as Uncle Ballard, had taught me what I knew about Capoeira, about dance and much of what I knew about acrobatics— and who had taken me into space for the first time….
"What the heck?" Aunt Elaine said. "Jocelyn, where are we?"
"Inside the Scythe, I think," I said, hugging her. "Outside of time, I know.
"In here? No time. No tired. No hungry, no thirsty… and whatever we need for training materials will be here.
"I need to know everything you can teach me, Aunt Elaine, about Capoeira, acrobatics, dancing— anything that even might apply to fighting or moving through a fight. I've got to run hell's own gauntlet to get to Catherine Madison, and right now… I'm not stupid enough to think I'm good enough. But maybe, after learning everything that the rest of you currently empowered can teach me? Maybe I will be."
Aunt Elaine looked at me for a long moment, then smiled, slowly. "Jocelyn… that sounds like a great idea!"
She led me into the space behind me, which had become something that was equal parts dance studio, acrobatics gymnasium, and dojo, and we started to work.
That… that was my longest set of lessons, because… because as much fun as this was, it was also deadly-damned-serious, and time might not have mattered outside, but inside, it did seem to pass, and Aunt Elaine… she made me play, some, too. And for play, she taught me something that had no impact at all on what I was about to do, but that…. Look, what she taught me for the sake of fun, millions of people would have paid her to teach them, some of them millions of dollars, even— but for her, teaching me to dance in zero FREAKING gravity was as much fun for her as me— or maybe more. She decided to see if the space inside the Scythe could do zero gravity, and once it had… she taught me.
No practical applications at all— but so much fun that I relaxed immensely, and came away from that my time with Aunt Elaine feeling relaxed and refreshed. It was heavenly!
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I opened my eyes, vibro-shivered, and looked around. Status still quo, no problems evident. I watched Piper finish off the monsters she'd webbed in place, then looked over at Harry Dresden where he stood laughing at a pair of vampires that were hammering on some sort of force field that he had placed in front of himself.
"I'm sorry, guys," he chortled. "I know it's rude to laugh, but after fighting Black Court vampires? You guys are kinda pathetic!"
Then Ian, who'd strolled casually over while Harry kept the vamps distracted, laid a hand on the back of each one's neck, the lines of Hope flared on his hands— and the vampires burst into flames.
"Thanks, Ian," Harry said with a cheesy smirk. He dropped his force field— seemed to be coming from a bracelet— and leveled his staff down the ramp in front of him. "Don't think I would've done this in anything you read, guy— watch.
"GLOBUS LACERTORUM!"
What ever that did, it made monsters and demons howl in pain and anger— and Ian and Harry both laugh aloud.
I smiled, closed my eyes, and thought of Faith Kilpatrick. Faith, who could operate on instinct and do as well or better than some Slayers with a planned attack or defense, whose wild, sometimes crazy style made her unpredictable to enemies, and who used that unpredictability like a finely honed weapon. Faith, who I had crushed on so hard it was pathetic, when I was eleven or so and her, Angel and Helena had spent a month of the summer in Normal, and who had tactfully ignored that until I got over it.
"Whoa, what the hell, kiddo?" Faith said, sounding mildly freaked.
"It's okay, Faith," I said, and I shook her hand, didn't hug her— she wasn't much of a casual hugger outside of a pretty small circle that I wasn't part of. "This is… it's inside the Scythe, I think, and in here? Time doesn't pass. Which is good, because I need to learn a bunch of stuff, and there's not much time."
"What the heck can I teach you?" Faith asked, and she sounded honestly puzzled.
I rolled my eyes and said, "I don't know, how about letting go of my brain, so that the bad guys can't predict what I'll do next? You're only the best there is at that— according to Buffy."
"Well, crap, I… I don't know if I can teach that, y'know," Faith said, sounding a little uncomfortable. "I mean… I didn't so much learn it, yo, as just start doin' it."
"Can't hurt to try, right?" I said, grinning. "Come on, Faith— take a shot at it. We've got all the time we could ever need, this place will become whatever sort of training space you need… how about it?"
That made her look interested. "Anything I need, huh?" She grinned, suddenly, and said, "Well, I can try— but you may not like it." She nodded at a point behind me, and I turned to see what looked, for all the world, like somebody crossed an obstacle course with a Brian-Keller-designed, automated, nearly robot-ized, security system.
"Welcome to my version of the Danger Room, kiddo," Faith said, her voice smug. "And remember— you asked for it!"
I let out a sound between a laugh and a groan and said, "Where do I start?"
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I opened my eyes, vibro-shivered as muscle-memory caught up with mental memory, and grinned. Faith had given me a long, tight hug before we left Scythe-space, which made me feel pretty groovy— I'd been admitted to that circle of people she'd hug, seemed like.
Harry and Ian were still laughing, and Piper was turning to see what they were laughing about as I looked up. Whatever it was, it made her bust out laughing, too, and she called, "Hey, Harry— you have to do that again when Jocelyn's ready to start her run for the prize, it'll help!"
"I can do that," Harry allowed, and suddenly looked thoughtful. "You know, I'm not feeling any drain, here, despite being pretty liberal with the power. I mean, I've gotten a lot better these last eight years or so, thanks to Lash, mostly, but still… this must be a high-magic world. Which means no real danger of running out if I get a little bit crazy, so… think I will!"
Harry Dresden turned, looked down the ramp at something I couldn't see, took a few steps down the ramp, raised his staff overhead and slammed it into the ground with both hands, roaring "FLAM-MAMURUS!" as he did so.
I heard the concrete crack, heard a sound somewhere between a dull roar and the sloshing of thick liquid— and a wide sheet of lava appeared, apparently fountaining up from a crack in the floor that, by the look of it, went all the way across the room.
"That," Harry said, his breathing a little hard, "will slow down anything that hates fire for a good few minutes."
"That's c— awesome," Ian said, and turned to watch the lava fountain up. "I was gonna say cool, but I don't think that'd work…."
Harry and Piper laughed, and I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and prepared to do the most important of my "training sessions," the one that would (I hoped) let me put everything together so that I could do what had to be done.
Buffy. Buffy, whom I admired more than I could ever express. Who had saved the world more than anyone else ever had, who had taught me, in her summer visits to Giles, how to put together the things that everyone else had taught me. Buffy, who had made it so that there was an army of Slayers. Yes, Willow had done the spell that made it happen, but Buffy had thought of it. Buffy, who was the mother of a friend I loved dearly, had been the mother of two— and when she lost her son, she hadn't let that cripple her, hadn't let it cripple any of us. She had grieved for Alex, grieved for him still, but she used it, made it work for her.
Buffy. The Prime Slayer. The woman I wanted to be as much like as I could, who could take everything I'd learned over the last… well, bunch of years, subjective time, and make it into not four disciplines that overlapped, but one seamless way of dealing with whatever got between me and saving my world.
"Jocelyn?" I opened my eyes and saw Buffy in front of me, looking confused— and she'd been crying, which scared me. "Where are we, Slayer?"
"Inside the Scythe," I said, stepping forward and taking one of her hands. She pulled me into a long, firm hug, and I added, "I think, anyway. No matter— we're where time doesn't pass in the outside world while we're here.
"Buffy… what happened? Is… is everyone all right?"
Buffy took a shuddery breath, and said, "Jocelyn… I don't… there's no way to… Giles."
Her voice broke on that last word, and I burst into tears of shock and hurt and anger, because I didn't need her to say the rest.
We clung to each other and cried for a while, and when we wound down, Buffy said, "Thanks, Jocelyn— being able to let go like that, to take the time… it'll make it easier to fight when I go back.
"So… why am I here?"
I looked her in the eyes and said, "I've been using this place to train. Mom, Aunt Rose, Aunt Elaine, Faith… they've all taught me everything I could learn about fighting, moving, swords, throwing things, letting the instincts work with the brain better, Capoeira, Hwa Rang Do, kung fu… all of that.
"I need you to help me make it one style, Buffy, to teach me to use those things together, without thinking about it or planning or anything— because there's so many monsters between me and Catherine Madison that I'll never get through them all without everything I just learned, and all of it working together."
Buffy looked at me, and a slow smile spread across her face. "I get it. 'The Blaze.' I get it, now.
"I'll do what I can, Jocelyn, but there's… I need to know what happened to Joyce?"
"She got pulled away from us by a Gleven," I answered immediately. "Warren ordered it, and he made some noise after— but Aunt Dawn, she told me in the note she sent with the Scythe that Joyce had help…."
"That's what we were told, yeah," Buffy said, shaking her head nervously. "It's just… I can't stop worrying."
"That's good, I'd be scared if you could," I said. I took a deep breath and looked around. At some point during the conversation, the empty white around us had filled with… not training equipment, it had become a… store of some sort? I could see rooms off of it in three directions, two "back rooms" with stuff that we could use for training, and what looked liked a totally modern gymnasium through the door that should have led to the street. "Uh, where are we?"
Buffy looked around, looked sad for a moment, then said, "The Magic Box. The store Giles owned in Sunnydale? That room over there is where I trained while he owned the place, the one the other way (where the shop's main stockroom was in the real world) looks like… the library at the high school, where we trained back then. And through the door to the street is the gym Xander and I used for training our Slayers in New York.
"I guess… Giles is kinda on my mind right now."
"I like that." I took a deep breath and said, "So… what do you think? Can you help?"
"Pretty sure, yeah," Buffy said, smiling at me. "Of course, you're gonna have to show me everything you can do, and maybe teach me some of it, before I can really start helping you put it all together."
I nodded and said, "Okay, well, pick a room, and let's get started."
Buffy nodded at the training room that she had used while Giles owned the Magic Box, I followed her in there— and we went to work.