To the Power Born: A Tale of the Slayers

Part 50: Blaze

Jocelyn:

What is it about Slayers, big battles, and the first of something? The First Evil at the Battle of Sunnydale, Amy's attempt to summon the First Evil and create a Hellmouth at the Battle of Bloomington, her mom's attempt at doing that here— and the damned First Vampire guarding the only way to get to Catherine Madison?

He made no move to attack me, just stood there calmly, waiting for me to move toward him, and I sighed. "I don't suppose you'd let me by without a fight?"

"No." He smiled, and I shivered. "I have killed Slayers in the past, and it is… satisfying. Now? I would test myself against one who was born to the Slayer power, and see if that is all that I hope it will be."

"Okay," I said. "Let's find out!"

I pulled a crazy disc and flung it away from us, aiming out towards Harry Dresden's wall of lava, and I charged the monster. He'd have to deal with me and the disc would hit him, or deal with the disc and I'd hit him.

Wow, did I have that wrong. Neither of my intended options actually happened.

Instead, he charged me, moving so fast that I barely had time to register the motion and start to block with the Scythe before he hit me, a sharp, hard right-hand punch that hit the flat of the Scythe's blade— and drove it into the left side of my face.

Believe or not, that actually did help; it spread the impact out over a greater area, and it only hurt like hell, as opposed to breaking my jaw.

I needed room, so I bounced into the ginga and danced my way around the demon, going to the edge of the ten-yard-wide flat area at the top of the ramp. I successfully avoided him, saw my crazy disc thunk into that massive wooden door, noted that— it might be handy later.

I finished my dance step, sprinted towards the far wall to get room for a tumbling run, turned around—

—and took a punch to the gut that slammed me the five feet or so that remained between me and the wall.

I felt fairly certain that I didn't have any internal injuries— but again, I knew that I'd bruise black around the spot where he'd hit me, and never mind the strike plates in my armor.

No, wait— thank the Powers for those strike plates! If not for them, I'd probably be on the ground, unable to stand.

"You're fast," the First Vamp said. He'd stepped back from me, and he stood casually, arms hanging easily at his sides, as he regarded me. "You're skilled… but you can't be prepared to fight me, girl. Turok-han fear me, demons of all stripe flee when they hear my name, and I have killed more Slayers down the millennia than you have had birthdays. Perhaps more than the number of seasons that you've seen, child. Do you have any idea of—"

"Hang on," I said, holding up a hand. "Look, I can't just keep thinking of you as 'the First Vamp,' it's too clunky. What's this name that demons flee from, anyway?"

"I am Krakarn," the vampire said, standing up straight and actually bowing a little. "And you?"

"I'm Jocelyn," I said, returning the bow. "I am the one that the women who made this weapon—" I hefted the Scythe. "—call 'the Blaze.' They have faith in me, Krakarn— so you'll forgive me if I fight you, and never mind your boasts, right?"

"I would not have it otherwise," Krakarn said, and again he smiled that creepy, chilly smile of his.

Then he hit me again, and I couldn't stop it. His left fist seemed to drill into the meat of my right shoulder, just below and inside the joint, and I damn near dropped the Scythe from the pain. I kicked him, drove my body off of the wall with my arms and shoulders and threw a kick into his gut that sent him backwards a good twenty feet. I moved after him in the ginga, my intent being to feint a giant double kick, then bring the Scythe down at an angle, try to get inside the raised collar-thing of his armor and behead him.

He recovered his balance completely while I was still in mid-walkover, took two blindingly fast steps forward, reached up, caught my left ankle, and threw me at the opposite wall, hard.

I had time to tuck and roll, to get my feet pointed at the wall, and I absorbed a lot of the force like taking a fall, rolled up the wall like rolling back on my shoulders for a ground fall— but it hurt. Both ankles and knees protested, and my left hip as well, and, while I wasn't going to bruise black or anything, I knew that I'd be bruised from butt to shoulders when this was over. If not for my hair being in a ponytail, so pretty thick at the back of my head, I'd probably have been knocked out. (I knew there was a good reason to wear it long.)

Krakarn was coming at me again, walking casually, as though killing me was nothing more than an amusement.

"Crap," I said softly. "I don't have time for this, Catherine's going to—"

I didn't even get to finish my thought before I heard Harry Dresden shout something that I didn't quite catch— and the game changed.

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Joyce, Piper, etc:

"Jocelyn's in trouble," Piper said, her voice thick with worry. She stood on the ceiling, looking towards the other end of the demon-filled hall. She webbed a group of incoming vampires to the floor, stopped them and the demons behind them for at least a moment, and added, "I don't know what that thing is, but it's too damned fast. And strong. It's playing with her like a cat with a beetle.

"I'm going to—"

"Wait!" Joyce said, her voice excited. "Wait, hang on, I have— Harry!"

"Fuego!" Harry Dresden snapped, aiming his two-foot long blasting rod— made specifically as a focus for fire magics, so he could use less power for more effect than he could with his staff. He swung the rod from left to right as a beam of white-hot fire the thickness of his pinky sprang from it, incinerated a dozen vampires and injured another dozen demons past that. He lowered the wooden rod and said, "What do you need, Joyce?"

"That thing you did at Chichen Itza, early on, the 'other Earth magic' you do well… can you do something similar now?"

"Similar?" Harry frowned, aimed his blasting rod again, muttered, "Fuego," and killed a Chiswinth demon that had been galloping towards the group.

"Jocelyn can do one thing that I know that whatever-it-is can't," Joyce said, her voice coming quickly, but without panic. "Harry, Jocelyn has been to Asimov Station— she's spent time in space!"

Harry Dresden grinned suddenly, snapped "Fuego" and burned down a P'korkin demon as it skittered towards him, clicking its mandibles hungrily.

"I can, yes," Harry said. "Give me… fifteen seconds!"

"Done!" Joyce said. "Get behind Ian and I!"

The otherworldly wizard tucked his blasting rod back in the pocket sewn into his duster's lining as he moved over behind Ian and Joyce as they stepped forward and Piper moved to stand on the ceiling directly over them. He'd never done this before, not like this— but the he knew the principle behind it, and this place… something about this place felt very different from his own Earth, but in a good way. He'd used more magic since arriving here than he'd ever used in a single day at home, but he was only starting to feel the mental fatigue he associated with "running dry," being unable to gather in more magic. So he could help— and he would.

This was important, he knew that— Buffy had given the Scythe to Jocelyn to use, and he couldn't imagine this world's Buffy doing that any more readily than his wife would, so it had to be damned important.

"Okay," he muttered as he gathered magic, worked the formula in his head, and set up the spell. He decided that this was urgent enough to warrant the use of Soulfire, energy that came directly from his own soul and could make any magic that created something better, stronger, and make virtually any effect last longer. He wrapped a piece of his soul around his spell, knowing that his simple delight at traveling to this other Earth would probably replenish that piece of him almost instantly, and said, "Let's give the kid an edge."

The circle he visualized in his head lit up with power, and Harry Dresden lifted his staff over his head with both hands as he shouted, "NULLUM GRAVITAS!" and sent the energy he'd gathered streaking towards the other end of the room.

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Jocelyn:

Krakarn had been strolling towards me casually as I crouched on the ground near the wall, feeling my many and varied (and abused) muscles and bones protesting the very idea of moving again.

Suddenly I felt a moment of disorientation and queasiness— and Krakarn's next casual step sent him careening towards the ceiling as gravity took a vacation.

"Time's up," I said, a huge, delighted grin spreading across my face as I gathered myself, put one heel back against the wall. "Rules change!"

I kicked with both feet, glad that I'd learned more about zero gravity movement than I already knew while inside the Scythe, more glad that I had taught it to Joyce and burned it into my muscle-memory by doing so.

I went at Krakarn like an arrow shot from Mom's Slayer-strength-required bow, flipped in mid-flight, slammed into the back of his head feet-first as he bounced off of the ceiling. He hit the ceiling again, face-first this time, and I heard the welcome sounds of breaking bones as I bounced back towards the floor. I collapsed against the floor, let my muscles resist just enough to eat up my inertia, and as Krakarn tumbled, I held position for a beat— then kicked back up, timed my swing carefully, and slashed across his eyes with the Scythe.

The motion and impact imparted both spin and recoil to us both. I knew how to handle that— the First Vampire hadn't a freaking clue. He hit the ceiling again, tumbling, feet first, then his back and shoulders as he continued the tumble. Unfortunately for him, he tried to catch himself with his elbows— and bounced off the ceiling pretty hard even as I kicked the ground with one heel just hard enough to push me away from the floor a little and transfer the rest of my motion into going back towards the wall at a good clip.

Krakarn hit the ground feet first, and tried to push off towards me, but he didn't understand the physics of zero-gee movement, and all he accomplished was a slow movement in my direction and a slightly faster one towards the ceiling.

"SLAYER BITCH!" Krakarn said, shaking his head and trying to get his one working eye on me again. "I WILL KILL YOU FOR THIS INDIGNITY!"

"You think this is an indignity?" I called as I 'collapsed' against the wall and held there in what my Aunt Elaine called a 'spacer's crouch,' pulled in on myself and ready to kick off, but steady and mostly unmoving. "Wait, it gets better!"

Can't say the monster didn't learn; he tried his very best to emulate my 'collapse' when he hit the ceiling, and to be honest, he did it way, way better than I had the first time I'd tried it up in Asimov Station— but it didn't quite work. He bounced again… and drifted towards the floor very slowly.

"Hey, Mr. I've-Killed-More-Slayers-Than-You've-Had-Birthdays," I called. "Two words for you: Ramming speed!"

I kicked off hard, angled up just slightly— and I mean Slayer-hard. I hit that son-of-a-bitch with the stake end of the Scythe at a ridiculous speed, and all of that speed, all of that inertia, got focused on a tiny little area the size of the tip of a nice, pointy stake.

I timed it right— and the stake part of the Scythe punched right through Krakarn's plate mail and into his heart. He dusted, but not so fast that I couldn't push off of his form towards the ground.

I got back to the ground, sucked up the little speed I had with a collapse, and took a deep breath. A second later, I heard a dim shout, and looked up to see Piper, standing on the ceiling at the other end of that football-field-sized room, wave at me— then make a sort of a patting motion with both hands that I took to mean "stay on the ground." I carefully waved back, moving slowly to prevent myself from picking up too much motion, and a few seconds later, gravity came back.

My aches and pains kicked up into high gear again, but I didn't really mind— I'd just beaten the oldest vampire alive. Sure, I'd had help, but still, I'd done the job, and I felt sure Buffy would've approved of the how.

"Okay," I said. "One last job to do."

I turned to that big wooden door, found the handle and the push-down thumb latch above it, and found it unlocked. I pushed, and it didn't open, so I pulled.

The door opened, and I found myself facing not one, but two Warren-bots, both wearing the miserable bastard's original face.

"Hi, sweetie," they said in perfect synch. "Say, wanna guess what I did a couple of minutes ago?"

"I really don't c—"

"I killed your mom, you stupid little bitch!" they said— and I knew, somehow, that they were telling me the truth.

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Cleveland, below ground:

Rose Killian held up a hand as she reached the place where the tunnel the group moved through should open out into the chamber of the Hellmouth proper, and everyone behind her stopped. She turned and gestured Elaine forward, and her first lover came to her as Rose sat down with her back to the chamber opening, knelt a yard or so back, then leaned forward and grabbed hold of Rose's ankles.

"What the— oh, that's smart!" Armsman murmured as Rose fell backwards, looked right, left, and as near straight behind herself as she could, then flipped her hand up— and Elaine straightened up and pulled Rose clear of the chamber entrance by her feet. "I'm going to remember that."

"Brian Daley, Han Solo at Star's End, cool," Cyber Knight said, and Armsman looked at him oddly. Knight gestured at Rose and said, "I'll bet that's where she learned it. That's where I remember it from."

Rose motioned everyone back, moved back with them, and said quietly, "Ugly. A few dozen vampires, all in game-face, probably three dozen other various and sundry demons, all of them looking at the Hellmouth. There's a bunch of gadgets— look like power winches, only tricked out, or— look, if they needed power winches in an episode of Star Trek: Regeneration, they'd look like that, you know? Stylized and futuristic.

"There are six of those, and a team of demons guarding each one."

"Not good," Elaine said. "Warren… he tried to knock Asimov Station down the second time by just blowing up a bunch of his bodies while they were on the side of the station pointed away from Earth, right?"

"Right," Starpulse said, nodding.

"So what happens if he explodes a bunch of himself down in the Hellmouth?" Elaine asked— and everyone on the team looked worried.

"Nothing good," Ballard said after a moment. "I think… that might blow it wide open, let pretty much anything pass in and out of it at will."

"Judas goat, I never even met this guy and I'm willing to nominate him for 'Supervillain of the Year,' " Armsman muttered.

"Yeah," Rose said. Her face darkened for a moment and she said, "Imagine how we feel. Especially since we're going to have to you flyers take him— we can't go down the hole and fight him."

"Oh, please!" Cyber Knight said, stepping forward. "Rose. It's me standing here. You read the comics with 'Pulse, right?"

Rose nodded, then said, "I did, but that was a long time ago."

"And you've got other crap on your mind, yeah, sorry," Knight said, and he managed to look contrite through some trick of posture. "Listen, I can override the gizmos, I'm pretty sure, get him up here before he can do anything about it.

"Then… well, I'm no Sin-Fire, and I don't want to be that ass-goblin, but I'm damn sure not gonna squawk if you folks kill this shithead deader than hell. Several times. Each."

"Okay," Rose said, straightening up and squaring her shoulders. "Big question is can you do it from here?"

"Sure," Knight said. "Super-robot-shithead has remote control from down in the pit. I can override him. In fact, I've been hacking the system while we talk, and I'm almost in… give me another few— oh. Never mind, it's done.

"Rose, on your order, I'll override the winches and bring all six Warren-bots up at emergency full speed. He's… almost two hundred feet down, so that will take… eight or so seconds from your order, nine if you give it in ninety seconds, ten if within three minutes."

"Okay, so… guys, this is going to take all of us." Rose dry-scrubbed her face and closed her eyes for a moment. "Pride and a need to kill this bastich be damned. We do this right. No one else dies, and Warren gets to do no more damage than he's done already.

"Ballard, you and Armsman are a pair. Vincent, you and Faith. Sh'rin, you and Cyber Knight work as a pair. Me and Elaine. Colin, you've fought him before and should know what to do to kill him fast, you work alone. Willow… you're our big gun backup. You help whoever needs it most, and please, Wil… remember what I said. Screw pride, screw paybacks— if it looks like he might hurt any of us badly, you kill him as fast and efficiently as you can.

"Questions?"

No one said anything, and after a moment, Rose said, "Okay. When I say 'now,' we charge out there and start killing stuff. Knight, you start the winches up then, that should give us a few seconds to clear the worst of the demons away from the winches. Super-types, witches, feel free to get massively violent, but no friendly-fire accidents, please.

"We go in three… two… one… now!"

Rose Killian led the way, took three steps and leapt into the air improbably high (until you remembered the Slayer power), spun like a figure skater, her arms held crossed on her chest, and lashed out with a kick at the first demon to come in range, a tall, thick-bodied thing with black skin, red horns curling up from its forehead, and red spikes at every joint. Her foot slammed into the demon's chest left of center and imparted some spin to it— as well as knocking it back into the thirty-foot diameter pit that led to the actual dimensional gateway of the Hellmouth, some seven hundred feet below.

As she landed, Rose drew her sword and lay about her with what seemed like mad abandon— until you realized that her sword never came within a foot of Elaine, who fought on Rose's left, wielding a short sword as she moved at and around the monsters in the insane, dancelike acrobatics of Capoeira.

Cyber Knight scooped up Sh'rin and flew to the far side of the Hellmouth, tucked her carefully against his chest as he slammed into a knot of demons at close to a hundred miles an hour. Three hundred and fifty pounds of metal wrapped around a hundred and seventy pounds of man, carrying a hundred and ten pounds of woman, all moving at a hundred miles an hour? Demons flew like bowling pins before a professional bowler who also just happened to be an angry weightlifter.

Cyber Knight set Sh'rin down in the cleared are he'd created, turned to one side and raised his left arm at the mass of vampires and demons to his left. A raised half-circle of metal about an inch in height on the back of his gauntlet opened as he leveled his arm and said, "Hey, guys, is it just me or is it getting hot in here?"

For a moment, no monster moved, then a vampire near the front of the group snarled and charged.

Flame poured out of the back of Cyber Knight's gauntlet as though under tremendous pressure, burned down the eight vampires he sprayed with the jet of burning chemicals, and actually staggered the two demons in the group for whom fire didn't mean instant death as though they were ordinary humans hit with a fire hose.

"Nope, it's not just me," Cyber Knight said cheerfully.

Sh'rin, who had been looking at the edge of the pit, waiting for the Warren that would be appearing soon, laughed for a second— before the Warren-bot attached to the winch nearest her and Cyber Knight came flying up out of the Hellmouth, attached by some sort of harness to the cable and winch— as did four others at four of the five other winches.

Cyber Knight had been smart, and not brought each winch all the way up before stopping them; he'd left ten feet of cable free, and the Warren-bots at the end of those cables came up out of the pit, flew up over the winches, jerked to a halt and slammed into the ground very hard some feet from the edge of the pit.

Sh'rin, the first of the new Guardians, didn't often use her magics offensively— which by no means had anything to do with lack of ability. She preferred to fight with her sword, hands, and feet, having improved all of those skills in the fifteen years since she came to Normal not long after the original Activation Day.

But against Warren— the Machine, who had killed Alex Harris and Chief, killed poor Royal, nearly killed Jocelyn, been responsible in part for the deaths of many others, and who had nearly destroyed the spirits of the women who had been her family and her teachers before coming to what was, to her, the distant future— against that monster, she used magic with no hesitation.

"Karado h'ros tikon!" Sh'rin said in a low, anger-filled voice. As she finished she pointed her left hand, the hand closer to the heart, closer to the emotion that drove her spell, at the Machine who had caused so much hurt.

The energy that poured from her hand could not be seen by normal human eyes— but the results could hardly be missed.

The Warren-bot had sat up, and his right hand and arm had begun to morph into some sort of weapon, but it did not finish its transformation before the magnetism that Sh'rin had summoned and localized slammed into the thing's spinal substitute at about waist level.

Magnetism and fine computer control do not go well together, Sh'rin knew that from her time here. She intuited that Warren, a machine she knew to be controlled by computers from things others had said, would be very susceptible to magnetic disruption, and in that, she was very, very correct. The Warren-bot spasmed violently, its body arcing up on heels and back of head so sharply that something inside it cracked audibly, almost loudly, and the thing began flopping around on the ground violently, like a giant trout jerked from a river to the bank. From it came a squawking, inhuman voice that said, "Error four-oh-one, bitches. Error four-oh-one, bitches. Error four-oh-one, bitches," over and over. After perhaps half a dozen repetitions, the phrase dragged to a halt and the robot fell still.

"Nice!" Cyber Knight said, even as he pulled a cylinder from his belt and ignited his blade of light again. "Very nice, Sh'rin!" With that, he began cutting up the body, making sure that it couldn't harm anyone despite its apparent shutdown.

Elsewhere around the circle, Rose and Elaine had beheaded and de-limbed their Warren, Armsman had cut the legs out from under his, and was killing demons as Ballard smashed the Warren-bot to pieces. Vincent and Faith had theirs wrapped up in the steel cable it had been descending into the pit on, and it was screaming at them to let it go, or it would kill them horribly.

"Hey, Cyber Knight," Willow called from where she floated near a crushed ball that had been a robot a moment before. "I think your trick worked. He's got no self control at all."

"Yeah, I guess it did," Cyber Knight said, casually cutting down a Chiswinth that charged at Sh'rin before it could get close. "Damn, this guy's a real loser."

"One missing," called Armsman as he went after the last Warren, which was starting around at the disaster, swearing constantly, and trying to unfasten the harness that held it on the end of the cable it had been descending on. The emergency-speed reel in and sudden stop at the end had bent the buckle hopelessly out of shape, though, and all it could do was sit there and twist frantically at the buckle.

"Yeah, I don't know— hey, where's Starpulse?"

From below, in the pit, came a huge explosion.

The Warren-bot that was still twisting at the buckle on its harness looked up and giggled maniacally. "He was down there. With the last of me. When I blew up!" Suddenly, the thing got a wild look in its eyes, and it said, "Hey, that's a great id—"

Cyber Knight's light blade split it down the middle before it finished the thought, and the hero turned to the Hellmouth pit, now belching flame and smoked into the cave at a scary rate.

"Starpulse!" he shouted. "Are you down there, man?"

No voice came back, but a moment later, a hand in a badly tattered black glove came up out of the pit, and slapped to the stone near Elaine Marshall's foot, and a weary, wobbly voice said, "Ow."

Rose and Elaine bent and grabbed Starpulse by the arms and pulled him up and out of the pit. Promptly, he flopped to his back, raised one hand into the air, index finger raised, and said, "No, really. Ow!"

Sh'rin arrived at his side, stared at the remains of his costume— more gone than there— and said, "My gods, Colin, what happened?"

"Starpulse," he corrected gently. "Always Starpulse when I've got the costume on, please, Sh'rin."

"You barely qualify, right now, my friend," Sh'rin said, taking his pulse. "What happened?"

"One of him cut the cable before he went any distance up, and…." Starpulse sat up slowly, then said, "His hand was a blade. He jammed it in the wall, angled it some, used that to get to the bottom at a survivable speed. I went down when only five came up. He fought me, but not real well, I grabbed him when I heard his overload whine start up, and started flying up." Starpulse looked down at himself and said, "I didn't think I could survive an explosion that big, not point blank, but… well, I swear, I heard…." He trailed off, glanced at Rose and shook his head. "Never mind. Imagination in overdrive."

"Tell us, Starpulse," Rose said, her voice level. "Even if it's something that hurts… well, you're here, alive. Can't hurt all that bad."

Starpulse looked at Rose, then said slowly, "I thought I heard Giles say, 'the Powers will help preserve you, as they promised to try to do, Colin. They owe you much, and Jocelyn needs you, dear boy.' Then… well, then I heard… I didn't ever get to know him that well, but I think it was Alex Harris, he said, 'yeah, your credit's way in the good column, hero.' Then… well, then BOOM, and then I was at the edge, and about to pass out, and you guys grabbed me."

Even as Rose's eyes welled up with tears, she managed to chuckle and say, "That was Alex, all right. And Dad… thanks, Starpulse."

For a long moment, they all stood there in silence, then Rose shook herself and looked at Willow. "Contact Dawn, see if we can go help clean the rest of this up."

Willow made the call, and a few moments later, their group joined the others at Eastland Mall.

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Jocelyn:

I wanted to scream. I wanted to scream and cry, and curl up into a ball and let grief have its way with me.

But more than that, so much more than that, I wanted to KILL WARREN, over, and over, and over, and—

"Murdering freak!" I snarled, and I moved. There was no way that even two of him could stand up to me, not now, not anymore— but behind him, down a short hall, I could see a glowing spell diagram on the floor, and Catherine Madison walked past it, examining it, even as I looked. I needed to do this quickly.

Warren laughed, a high, tittering thing, and said, "Told you bitches I'd kill you both, didn't I?"

I kicked that one as hard as I could, jumped in and drove the ball of my foot into it's sternum, sent it flying backwards into the wall. Immediately, the other one snarled and leapt at me, its fist going back and starting around in a punch that… well, it made no real sense. I'd fought this asshole already, and he knew better than the Redneck Classic punch. You know, the one where they throw their fist back as far as they can, then bring it around in this great big, looping punch, that, while it might be devastating if it hit, comes so slowly that a turtle on tranquilizers can dodge it pretty easily.

Yet here it came, the Redneck Classic, not even any finger-blades or anything, just a punch that I could dodge in my sleep.

So I blocked it, instead— with the edge of the scythe. The blade hit Warren's oncoming arm midway between wrist and elbow, and the lower half of his lower arm separated from his body neatly, and flew past me. Warren stopped, looked stupidly at his arm where I'd made the cut using his own strength, then looked up at me and said, "You BITCH!"

I had no time or patience for this bag of shit, so I simply used the scythe in a way that I'd seen Buffy use it on a Hurkulpo demon recently, and heard the story of her doing to Caleb, the First Evil's psycho preacher. Given that Catherine was doing something that could return the First evil to the world, it seemed appropriate to split this Warren-bot in half— from groin to head.

I did it in a single attempt, kicked the pieces aside, and started for the last Warren-bot, which was still near the wall— and trying to press itself back into the wall, by the look of things.

"You can't do this to us!" it yelled as I stalked towards it. "You're just a girl! JUST A GIRL, YOU BITCH!"

I didn't dignify the miserable excuse for a food processor with a response. I just gave it the same treatment I'd given the other one, while it cowered against the wall and cupped its hands over its crotch.

Then I went down the hall, walking quickly, trying to focus on what I might have to do here. There wasn't anyone else to take out Catherine Madison… so I might have to kill her, and as much as the part of me that hurt over my Mom's death wanted to do that, right now… most of me knew that it would break some part of me that I might never be able to fix.

I entered the room where the actual spell was being cast, and found Catherine herself now in the middle of the diagram on the floor, which glowed that deep blue she liked so much.

"You're too late," she called. "I have the power gathered. I have the diagram ready. I have only to say thirteen syllables, and the First Evil returns, and opens a Hellmouth, right here. I have a force field up around the diagram, so you can't attack me, or destroy the wizard's knot that holds the power in, like your mentor did to my daughter so long ago.

"So… what now, child?"

I stopped and I looked at her across twenty feet of diagram, and I said, my voice perfectly level, "Why? Why continue? Do you know that will happen if you bring the First Evil back and it opens a Hellmouth here?"

"I have some familiarity with Hellmouths, girl," she replied. "I lived on one for most of my life."

I shook my head. "You don't know. Amy didn't, either, Willow said. But then… well, I don't think Amy would have cared."

"Neither will I," Catherine said, her voice hard.

"Really?" I asked. I shook my head. "I think you do. I think you do care, Mrs. Madison, because you keep… giving us chances to stop you. You don't have to. You could have kept us all out, but no, you play these… these tired, egotistical, super-villain games of riddles and locks and ways to get to you.

"You do care— and you need to know if you call the First Evil, and it opens a hell mouth here, this close to the one in Cleveland… well, that will have one of two effects— either Hellmouths will open all over the world, spaced anywhere to two hundred to four hundred miles apart, but no more than that— or one huge, gaping Hellmouth will open that covers all of the ground between here… and Cleveland. If that happens… it's all over. The Old Ones come back, and the human race… dies."

That shook her. I could see it. Still, she didn't shut down the spell.

"Why do you think I care?" she asked. "Why do you think that will stop me?"

"Because your heart isn't in this." I sighed, and sat down on the floor at the edge of the circle. "It hasn't been for a while, now, and I think… I think you realized that you were doing to others what we did to you. I think you realized that you were taking people's daughters from them. And you didn't even have the reason we had, the need to do it to save lives."

"You… you bastards didn't have to kill her!" Catherine said, her voice breaking.

"Yes." I sighed. "Yes, I think they did. Mrs. Madison, do you know how many deaths are directly attributable to your daughter?"

"That doesn't matter!" Catherine said, her voice rising. "She was hurt, she wasn't in— she wasn't okay! You could have helped her, you—"

I spread my arms out to indicate the diagram on the floor. "Where's your sacrifice?"

"Wh-what?" she asked.

"I see the diagram, I know that this is way, way freaking harder at an equinox than it was for Amy at the winter solstice," I said, staying calm. "But I don't see a sacrifice."

"I'm strong enough that I don't have to sacrifice anyone for this," Catherine said. "All those years trapped in my damned trophy, they made me strong, so strong that… I don't have to do that."

"Amy did it," I said. "She sacrificed a little girl. Seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. Nine years old. She did it… and she did it slowly. That wasn't part of the ritual, Willow said, and she had no reason to lie. But Amy took… her… time… about killing a little girl."

"Shut up," Catherine said, her voice now very low.

"Amy didn't want help. She wanted nothing but to hurt Willow… because Willow was better than her at magic, and Willow… found her way again. Went bad… and came back." I shook my head. "Amy did everything she did out of hate… and she liked it."

"That's a lie!" Catherine hissed. "Amy wanted to… to make… she wanted… she…."

"She was broken," I said, very softly. "She caused so many deaths, and she liked it. She was past help, Mrs. Madison. Your daughter died because she killed and killed and killed and she liked it, and was never, ever going to stop."

"No, Amy was… was… she was hurt, and… and scared, and—" Catherine Madison let out a harsh sob, and covered her mouth with her hand, and sank to her knees there in the middle of her diagram. "She was… she was my daughter!"

"I know," I said. "I understand that, believe me. But what you've done? You've cost so many women their daughters, and… you helped Warren, and he killed my friend Alex, Buffy's son. He tried repeatedly to kill her daughter. He had a hand in killing my grandpa… and he killed my mom." I gulped down tears. "You want to kill more people? Maybe everyone on Earth? Is that what happens now, is that how you use your power? To do to millions, maybe billions of people out of some twisted sense of paybacks what my family did to you because they had no choice? Because it was the only way to keep someone who had gone insane from killing again and again and again?"

Catherine sobbed again, and wrapped her arms across her stomach, knelt there and shook.

"You don't have to be that way," I said, just loud enough to be sure that she heard me. "Please. Please, stop it. Stop it, let it go… let it end without anyone else dying. Please."

For a long moment, Catherine didn't move, just knelt there and sobbed. Then she straightened up some and said, "I… Drusilla. She was going after Angel Kilpatrick and his wife, she was going to… to torture their daughter, torture her like—"

"She failed," I said. "She failed, and she was dusted. The Warren-bot with her was destroyed. Helena's fine."

Catherine stood up and faced me. After a moment, she said something quiet and waved a hand. "The force field is gone. You can… cut the knot, now. It's at the south edge of the circle. Go on."

I stood, but there was something… wrong, still. "What happens if I do that?"

"The power runs out of the circle," Catherine said, "and the threat is over."

I frowned. Something was wrong, still. She wasn't looking at me while she talked. "What happens to you?"

"I… the circle is bound up with my life," she said. "I made it that way— I had to, to power it, since this is an equinox. When you cut the knot… I die."

"What?" I said. I shook my head. "No, I can't do that, I won't—"

"I am ready to die," Catherine said. "I… don't want to go on. I've turned into something… if I live, I may well go bad again, young lady. Jocelyn, isn't it?"

"Yes, I'm Jocelyn." I sighed. "We need to figure something out, then, because I won't kill you, Mrs. Madison."

"I can't be trusted," she said calmly. "And I think you need to call me Catherine."

"Catherine, I don't have any intention of killing you," I said firmly. "Surely you can… repurpose the spell, can't you? So you use the energy, and then don't die when I cut the knot?"

"I… could try that," Catherine said. She shook her head a little. "There's a LOT of energy, here, though. Any thoughts?"

I closed my eyes, then spoke, my voice small and frightened— frightened to hope. "Could you… bring my mom back?"

"I… no, Jocelyn." Catherine let out a watery sigh. "I can't break the laws of magic, and Warren… he couldn't have killed her magically, so I can't bring her back. I'm sorry. I… truly, I am."

I nodded. I'd known that, but… I had to ask. "Okay. So… are there more Warrens?"

"Yes," she said. "Yes, there are half a dozen out there, at least, doing nothing at all dangerous, so that he can try again later if this fails."

"Could you… find all of him," I asked, slowly, "depower him to… to where he's like a normal human, so he can't hurt people… and teleport all of him to the mall? Pretty much to Buffy?"

Catherine actually smiled a little. "I can. Given the comments he made in the few minutes before you arrived, and the way he acted when you ended those two of him? I won't even feel guilty, really. I think I saw the real Warren Mears… and he was a miserable ball of male chauvinist asshole."

"You got that right," I mutter-sniffled.

Catherine worked for a moment, erased many spell lines, made new ones, then chanted quietly— and said, "Done. Any and all Warren-bots are now within thirty feet of Buffy, and they're reduced to normal human strength. I can't do much about the abilities I don't understand… but I'm sure that your people can handle him.

"I still have a good bit of power left. Is there anything else… big and possible that I can do for you?"

I thought for a moment, then had a brilliant idea, I hoped. "You can't break the laws of magic, but… well, what about a workaround? I mean— someone from another universe that was meant to die in that universe, they can't go back without dying, right?" Catherine nodded. I took a deep breath. "Okay, well… what about contacting that universe? Can you do that?"

Catherine nodded slowly, and said, "I believe so. What am I looking for, here?"

I talked for a couple of minutes, and she worked for a couple more, then a circle of light opened in front of me, and I found myself looking into what appeared to be a sumptuously appointed apartment, filled with overstuffed furniture, all of it old-fashioned and scrupulously clean. At a small dining room table facing the gateway Catherine had opened, two people sat staring in absolute shock through it at me. One was a heavyset (but not actually fat) man who looked to be in his nineties, but still ambulatory, and the other a forty-something woman, long and slender, with a long blond braid that hung to her waist.

"Hello," I said. "I'm sorry to intrude on you like this, but… I have news that I think you need to hear. News about Judith Jane Holmes."

Both of them reacted, though differently. The woman closed her eyes and winced in pain, and the man glared at me. "My niece," he said, in a voice that promised thunder and punishment, "has been dead for very nearly three weeks, young woman. If this is some sort of joke, it is in exceptionally poor taste."

"That's the thing, sir," I said, and I took a deep breath. "Sir, the portal that is allowing me to speak to you? It's magical. I know that this may seem anathema to you, but it's true, Mr. Holmes. And… sir, like the sciences, magic has laws. Laws that simply cannot be broken or subverted. One of those laws is that if someone is, by accident, translated from one parallel universe to another, and was meant to die in their own universe at or near the time of translation, they can only return to that reality at that time and place.

"And that was what happened to Judith. We checked, and to send her home would be to kill her in a horrible way. We couldn't do that, wouldn't, and though it hurts her to be away from you both… she is learning to live here, now, in my world, as a part of my extended family, a part of my life."

Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's older, smarter brother, opened his mouth to snarl at me— but Mary Russell-Holmes, Judith's mother, held her hand up in his direction and said, her voice firm, "Mycroft, wait. Look at her. Look at how she's dressed, and for god's sake, man, look at how she is addressing us." Mycroft closed his mouth, but continued to glare at me as Judith's mother continued. "Young lady— may I ask your name?"

"My name is Jocelyn Penobscot, ma'am," I said evenly. "Please, call me Jocelyn."

"All right, Jocelyn," Mary Russell-Holmes said, her eyes on mine, "can you offer me any proof that what you say is true?"

"I have no physical proof, no," I said, sighing in frustration. "The circumstances that led me to be able to do this, to talk to you, are… they weren't expected. But… there is something that I can tell you, ma'am, that… I know how hard it is for me to hide things from my parents, and I suspect that it is true of Judith, as well— because, frankly, the idea of even trying to fool you or your husband is… I know I couldn't do it. So there is something I can tell you that… it may convince you. It might embarrass Judith that I told you, but… it may make you able to accept what I say."

"All right," Judith's mother said. "Tell me, please."

"I have… I have braided Judith's hair for her," I said, fighting a blush. I went pink, but not red, I think.

Mary's eyes widened some, and Mycroft started in his chair. Apparently, he knew of the significance of that act to Mary, and thus probably to Judith, and I felt my face getting warmer as he said, "Now, just one moment, here—"

"Mycroft." Mary's voice was calm, but her eyes were locked on mine. "Mycroft, it is… very possible. Judith… finds both sexes attractive."

Mycroft Holmes turned very red, and looked down at the plate of food in front of him. After a long moment, he said, "I am aware. I was not… aware that you knew."

"She's my daughter, Mycroft, of course I knew," Mary said. "I have no issue with it, however, and saw no reason to… tell anyone else."

"Neither did I," Mycroft said. He sighed. "Do you love my niece, young woman?"

"Yes, I do," I said calmly. "Very, very much. Which is why I made this effort, took advantage of… unexpected circumstances, so that… so that you could at least know that she's well, alive, and learning to be happy.

"But… there is more…."

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Eastland Mall, Aboveground:

"YOU CAN'T DO THIS!" the last of the seven Warren-bots that had appeared in a circle around Buffy (even as the crew of the spaceship Serenity faded away) screamed as Xander Harris, a grim look on his face, advanced on the thing, stepping over the one that Buffy had killed moments before to do so. "I'M A FREAKING SUPER-GENIUS! YOU CAN'T KILL ME, YOU'RE A FREAKING IDIOT!"

"Funny," Xander said, the longsword in his hands going back over his head. "See, most people would consider anyone who deliberately pissed off my wife to be the idiot. Doesn't much matter, though, you son of a bitch— because YOU'RE DEAD!"

Xander split the robot in two with a blow driven by all the pain of Alex's death, and all the rage he felt towards the man who had killed both Xander's son and the man he'd spent years thinking of as his father. Then he turned and looked at Buffy and said, his voice much, much more like his old self, "So, honey… do you feel better, now? I feel better, now."

"Much better," Buffy said, sighing. She shook her head and looked at Whitey Penobscot, sitting near the Warren that he'd killed himself, sitting and crying on Vi' Chandler's shoulder— Vi and Chantelle had been best friends, pretty much. She looked at Rose, Elaine, Sh'rin and Dawn, clustered around Ballard, all of them weeping, and sighed. "I wish… I wish none of it had happened, but still… I feel better, now.

"I just wish I knew where Joyce was…."

Behind Buffy, concrete shifted and slid, and she spun around, ready to defend against whatever monster was coming for them now.