Glory-ous Victory
Summary: Follow-up to Glory-ous Alliance. Glory is free of Ben and has Kal by her side. How does that affect the outcome of her battle with the Slayer?
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Dawn Summers never wanted to be this...this Key...whatever it is. She never wanted to have some crazed Hell God-Bitch stalking her friends and family for months on end. She certainly never wanted to be tied to the top of some rickety tower built by crazy people where she would be bled open and in doing so she would tear the walls of reality down destroying the universe as she knew it.
It's now the last stand. Her sister, Buffy, had made it to the top of the tower and now stands, Troll God Hammer in hand, between Dawn and the Hell Goddess known as Glory. Well Glory and this tall guy with curly black hair and blue eyes called Kal who Glory referred to as her Consort. That image made Dawn retch violently.
Only Buffy had made it up here. One by one it seemed to Dawn she had been losing the people around her. Spike was first to fall. Glory had kidnapped him to torture him into telling her where the Key was. Buffy and the gang had gone to rescue him and thought they had succeeded until he inexplicably went poof in a ball of fire.
Spike stands in the middle of Glory's apartment strung up by his wrists by a chain from the ceiling. His shirt has been torn off and he is bloody and beaten with several cuts on his chest from the torture Glory has inflicted on him in her efforts to find out who the Key is.
Spike had already tried to be funny by saying the key is Bob Barker and then he insulted her perm.
Glory gasps at her hands go up to her hair. "My hair's naturally curly and bouncy!" she proclaims angrily. She turns to Kal sitting on the couch. "Right Kal. You tell him."
"Your hair is one of the wonders of the world," Kal assures her.
Glory smiles smugly.
Spike's gaze falls on Kal. "So tell me mate. What are you getting out of this?"
Cold blue eyes lock onto Spike. "A new purpose to my life."
"What are you doing with this lightweight?"
"Lightweight!" Glory screeches and in response slaps Spike hard.
Spike shakes it off and says with renewed determination,"I ain't tellin you jack. You'll never find your soddin' key and mark my words the Slayer is going to kick your skanky, lopsided ass..."
Glory checks her ass in dismay.
"...back to whatever place would take a," Spike sizes her up, "cheap, whorish, fashion victim ex-god like you."
Glory looks at Kal burning with anger. "Did you hear what he said about my ass?"
Kal gets to his feet and starts to walk over to her. "I heard."
"It's not lopsided is it?" she asks with almost for once uncertainty in her voice.
Kal takes her by the arms and rubs them gently. "As someone who has thoroughly and repeatedly examined every inch of your bootilicious ass I can promise you sweetness that it is as flawless and perfect as the rest of you."
Glory frowns. "Then why did he say it?" she asks.
"He's trying to make you angry."
Glory's expression hardens. "Well he succeeded."
Glory spins round and delivers a kick to the centre of Spike's chest sending him flying through the apartment, through the front door and out into the hallway.
"Good plan, Spike," Spike mutters with a groan. He tries to get back to his feet although his hands are still wrapped together in the chain which has broken about halfway along its length. He starts to drag himself towards the elevator when there is a whoosh noise and the chain is grabbed and he finds his progress halted. Spike looks to see...what did Glory call him? Oh yeah Kal.
"You know this would be so much easier if you just told her," Kal tells him.
"I'm not the one banging Miss permanent bad hairdo mate."
Kal laughs.
"What the bleedin hell is so funny?"
Kal yanks on the chain hard, flipping Spike into the air over his head and slamming the blond vampire down into the floor with so much ease it shocks Spike. Kal then grabs Spike by his hair. "If you were the one banging her you would be a hell of lot worse off than you are now. She would crush every bone in your body." Kal then punches Spike across the face hard enough to knock the blond vampire out. "Well now that we have had this fun little chat back to your torture we go."
Kal then drags Spike back into the apartment where he is chained back up and water thrown in his face to wake him up.
Glory looks at Spike most unamused with her hands on her hips. "You tried to escape. I am very annoyed."
"Look you fashion reject just kill me already because I ain't tellin you anything."
Glory throws her hands up. "Arh!" she rages. "Why won't you just tell me?" she demands. "You're a vampire. She's a vampire slayer. Vampires don't know the first thing about loyalty. I don't get it!"
"I do," Kal says.
Glory looks at him for the explanation.
"Well as you know I've been spying on them all for you for some time and I noticed a few things."
"Like?"
Kal smiles an odd little smile. "He's in love with her."
Spike's eyes widen in shock that his secret is out. Glory looks at him for several seconds before she grabs her sides and starts laughing so hard she has to sit down before she falls over. She points at him. "He's...in...love...with...a...slayer," she manages to get out between her laughs. It takes a minute but Glory reigns it in. "Wow. That makes you a lot more pathetic than I thought you were," she tells Spike.
Kal shrugs and then moves over to stand right in front of Spike. "So you won't say who the Key is but I got to know one thing."
"What?" Spike asks.
Kal taps on a certain part of Spike head. "What's this?"
Glory moves over next to Kal. "What's what?"
"There's a microchip in his brain."
"Really?"
"Yes. I can see it."
Glory roughly grabs Spike by his chin and makes him look at her. "What's that about you irritating little bloodsucker?"
Spike decides for once that silence might be golden and just gives her a defiant glare. He then notices Kal lean in, gently kiss her neck and then murmur something softly into her ear. So softly even Spike can't make it out completely.
Glory smiles delighted by whatever Kal said. "That's a great idea!" she proclaims. "Minions!" she yells loudly even though they are in the room with her.
They all bow. "Yes oh most beauteous Glory," the one called Murk replies.
"Take Mr Lame sense of humour here down to the basement and get him ready."
"Ready for what oh most vibrant One?"
A wicked gleam comes to Glory's eyes. "We're going to have a little close-up look at that chip in his brain by cutting his head open and I don't want bits of vampire brains all over my carpet."
The demons bow and do as commanded. As soon as Spike is gone Kal and Glory move to the window looking out. He points down below. "Here they come riding to the rescue," he says in relation to Buffy and company coming to save Spike whom he had heard coming which is what he whispered in her ear.
Glory chuckles. "If only they knew what we're really planning for them," she says with dark anticipation of what she and Kal will inflict upon the Slayer and her little band.
Kal turns her head to his and kisses her. "If only," he says his voice a little husky. "You're a cruel manipulative person."
Glory smiles. "Aw. You say the sweetest things."
"You do know they will kill some of you minions," he points out.
Glory shrugs, totally uncaring. "Minions schminions. I have lots of them."
A few minutes later Glory and Kal watch as the group help the limping Spike away.
"Far enough?" Kal inquiries.
Glory ponders for a few seconds. She wants them to get far enough away to think they're safe. "Now," she decides.
Kal pushes the window open and two red beams streak from his eyes and with pinpoint accuracy strike Spike. From where they stand the two of them can see the small eruption of flame that is the vampire before he turns to dust. They had planned this whole thing and timed it perfectly so Spike would be down in the lobby at the moment the Slayer and co stormed in. They wanted her to rescue him or at least think she did.
Glory gives a little scream of delight and claps her hands gleefully as she imagines the look on their faces at when the annoying bleached blond(her hair is naturally blond so she totally has that up on him) vampire went poof. She only regrets she couldn't see it.
'It's funny,' Dawn thinks as she awaits for the final showdown between her sister and her two enemies. It's funny how time seems to slow down in these last moments giving her time to remember how they reached here. They lost Spike and then...then came their mother.
Dawn has to suppress a sniffle of sorrow as she remembers.
Dawn will never really know what happened. She was at school when Buffy found their mother dead.
"I'm bored," Glory announces one day. Boredom is a common emotion for her. There is little on this world that can hold her attention. Well except her lover of course. He can keep her...'occupied' for days at a time.
Kal cocks his eyebrow before reaching over to the bedside table and grabbing his watch. "We've been up 5 minutes," he points out. They were still in bed. He was just awake. Glory could be very wearing. Her appetites were almost insatiable.
Glory pouts and strokes his broad chest. "But when was the last time we tormented that annoying little slayer?"
Kal has to smile. Since he rejected his humanity he must admit he has found tormenting Buffy Summers kind of amusing. "Ok. Any ideas?"
"Hundreds," she says insulted that he could imply anything else. "Hundreds of little butterflies all in a row. Pluck. Pluck. Pluck their little wings off."
Glory's hands go to her head. The insanity. It was returning. It didn't happen as often anymore since she was freed from her fleshy prison but until her powers fully return and she can completely shed this human form she still needs to feed occasionally.
Kal takes her by her arms and kisses her on the temple. "You hang on. I'll find you someone."
In a blur of motion he is dressed and has put on Glory's robe for her before summoning in the minions to watch her. It only takes him a few minutes to find someone and the truth is despite knowing what happens next he doesn't feel guilty at all. The old him could never have even contemplated doing this but Glory has helped free him of all those little burdens of human conscience.
He has the minions hold the young woman still while he leads Glory to her. He takes Glory's hands and places them on the woman's head. Glory's fingers penetrate the skull with the shafts of light emanating from them. It only takes a few moments.
Glory then stands up straight, her posture reverting to its usual one of power and strength and control. "Ah. Much better," she says in a cheerful voice before commanding the minions to get rid of her used up meal. She then stretches her arms above her head with all the grace and sexual allure she is capable of.
"So where were we?" she asks Kal as if that whole thing never happened.
"Tormenting the Slayer," he reminds her.
A grin comes to Glory's face. "That's right."
"Can I suggest something?" Kal requests.
"Of course sweetie. You're the only one who is allowed to."
"The Slayer's mother is recovering from a brain tumour and they were worried about how it might leave her crazy so I was thinking lets go ahead and do that. Lets make her crazy."
"I could do with seconds," Glory says agreeing with Kal's idea as a wicked grin forms on her face. This is going to be a lot of fun.
Ok so in the end it didn't go quite as planned. When they showed up at the Slayer's house and Glory sucked Joyce Summers' brain something happened that neither Kal nor Glory anticipated. The stress of Glory draining the energy caused a brain aneurysm and well that was the end of the Slayer's mom. Not that watching the Slayer and all her friends grieving afterwards didn't have its highlights because it did and in a way the best part was that no-one ever suspected Kal or Glory had any part of it. It allowed them to continue their little game with the Slayer without her realising that is what they were doing.
Next. What major thing came next?
Dawn thinks, as time still seems to stretch on interminably.
Oh Dawn remembers. Tara. Glory fed off Tara's brains.
Kal comes up behind Glory, wraps his arms around her and kisses her neck in what is his common exhibition of affection. "I was thinking."
"Hmm. About what?" Glory purrs as Kal's lips excite her whole body.
"When we get the Key we want the Slayer to come and try and get it back."
"Oh yes," Glory moans half at what Kal is doing to her. "I want her to try her best and have her fail. It will make her death all the sweeter when she realises the little game we have been playing with her."
Kal continues kissing Glory's neck and speaking in between. "Then we need to come up with a way for her to find out where to be but not make it obvious that is what we wanted."
"You are so devious," Glory says impressed at him.
"Thanks."
"What's your plan?"
"That you feed off one of her little friends since they will be drawn to the place of the conjunction. The Slayer will follow thinking it will lead her to the Key."
Glory moans in pleasure as Kal sucks on a particularly sensitive part of her neck. "Which one?" she asks in relation to which of the Slayer's friends Glory should feed on.
"To make it really hurt and to look like it is just you being spiteful I was thinking it should be that little sweet kind blond witch."
Glory moans louder and not just at what Kal is doing to her. That idea is really a turn on. She turns round in his arms and pushes him onto the bed before clambering all over him. "For a plan like that I'm thinking your God should reward you."
"Oh then reward away my Goddess," he says with a hungry gaze as she undresses above him. The room is dark, only lit by candles, and the light from them makes Glory skin have a wonderful glow to it making her look every bit the Goddess she is.
As for the aftermath of sucking the little witch's brains even Glory will admit she didn't foresee the red-haired witch seeking revenge for what happened to her lover. Kal had been out attending to some other business so Glory had been home alone at the time. It had been quite an effort on Glory's part to not rip apart the red-haired witch and the Slayer when she came rushing to the rescue but Glory restrained herself for no other reason than to make it all the sweeter when the end came which after that incident Glory had now decided would be very soon.
This last year has been the toughest of Buffy's life. First to find out her sister is the result of some monks transforming a mystical Key into human form and then altering her and everyone else's memories to make sure to hide Dawn from Glory. Then Buffy finds out the thing she is protecting Dawn from is a genuine Hell God. Then this guy shows up alongside Glory. If he wasn't the bad guy Buffy would so be crushing on him for being close to perhaps the most downright gorgeous man she has ever seen...except he is not a man. She thinks he isn't anyway. They had not been able to find out anything about him.
Buffy had come to consider him perhaps more dangerous than Glory for while Buffy had fought Glory a few times and got her ass kicked she will admit but at least she had a good idea how strong Glory was. Him on the other hand; he always stood to the side and simply watched. It was disconcerting and creepy. His explanation when Buffy had asked once being that he wouldn't want to deny Glory her fun.
Fun?
Oh yeah this whole thing has been so much fun.
Forced to flee when Glory's patience ran out. Chased by the Knights of Bad fashion-ium who wanted to kill Dawn to prevent Glory gaining possession of the Key. Finding out Ben, a nurse who Buffy had liked, was the human vessel Glory had been banished into at the worst possible time imaginable. When they had called him to help Giles who had been injured by the knights. They had been holed up in the desert surrounded by the Knights with only a shield Will conjured up protecting them. Right in the middle of it Ben transformed into Glory and took Dawn.
For a moment it all became too much for Buffy and her mind snapped until Willow magicked herself into Buffy's mind and brought her out of it.
Then came this the final fight. They had a plan. No guarantee it would work but it was a plan. First off have Willow do some mojo and take back the mental energy Glory stole from Tara and hence weaken Glory or at least make it more difficult for the Hell God to hold a coherent thought together.
Looked like it would work too. Willow had one hand each on Tara and Glory's heads. Cool blue lightning seemed to show the transfer of energy and then Glory did something. She put her hand into the energy and deflected it or something. The link became between Willow and Glory where Glory was doing the draining.
Poor Willow became another crazy slave of Glory's will.
Despite that the plan proceeded. Use the Buffybot and the Dagon Sphere. The sphere thing seemed to work. Glory certainly looked in pain until she crushed it. At that point no sign of Glory's Consort as they had discovered he was. Buffy didn't know why. Didn't care. It gave her a fighting chance if he wasn't around.
Glory smashed the Buffybot so Buffy pulled out her next ploy. The hammer of a Troll God. Certainly seemed to do the trick.
Still a problem with Glory's minions making sure none of her friends could get up to Dawn.
The fight with Glory continued. Buffy lost the hammer but got Glory into position for Xander's part where he hit her with a wrecking ball. Only he didn't.
The instant the ball smashed through the wall there was Kal, appearing from nowhere, his hand blocking the ball which now had an enormous dent in it.
Buffy remembers he looked at her with...amusement like he was finding this entire thing hilarious but it was more than that. The way he smirked like he was constantly laughing at a joke only he got.
What was not amusing was what happened next. He grabbed the chain of the ball and then swung the whole machine around and around, with Xander still inside, before he flung it far off over the horizon and out of sight. The chances of Xander surviving the impact when it came back down had to be practically zilch.
Then for whatever reason he stood back aside once more as Buffy, who managed to retrieve the Troll Hammer, and Glory hammered(pun intended) it out until here Buffy stands atop of the tower with Glory and Kal opposite her.
"You know this has really been quite amusing," Kal comments.
"I know right," Glory says in agreement.
"You will not touch her," Buffy declares.
Glory laughs. "Oh sweet cheeks. You have no idea at all what is going on do you?" She looks at Kal. "If you would," she requests.
Kal gives her a quick kiss. "Anything for you beloved." His eyes then glow red and beams shoot from them striking the hammer heating it up so much Buffy has no choice but to drop it. Then in a blur of motion Glory moves forward, grabs a couple of metal pieces of the tower and then slams them through Buffy's shoulders at the right angle until they penetrate through the platform effectively pinning Buffy where she stands.
Dawn cries out at seeing her sister like this.
Glory had made sure that what she did would not be immediately fatal. She needed the Slayer alive long enough to explain a few things. She grabs Buffy by her chin and makes the blond slayer look up at her. "Did you know that you had lost this battle before it even began?"
Buffy glares at Glory through her pain.
Glory continues. "Do you know when I actually discovered your sister was the Key? It was that day my beloved Kal and I showed up at your house. You remember that?"
Glory and Kal walk away from Buffy's house after Glory had had a little chat with the Slayer threatening to kill Buffy's loved ones one by one until Buffy gave her the Key.
"Why won't she tell me?" Glory whines. "She doesn't need the Key. I do!"
"It's the sister," Kal says.
"Well she was kind of spunky. I almost liked her."
Kal shakes his head. She didn't hear him or at least not what he was meaning. "You said the Key was green energy?"
"When I last saw it it was this green swirling energy ball."
"The Slayer's sister. Her aura was...odd so I took a closer look and know what I saw?"
"No and do I care? No."
"I think you'll care about this. In her blood, in every one of her blood cells I saw swirling green energy."
Glory stops dead in her tracks and starts to smile. She grabs Kal's face and proceeds to kiss the life out of him. "I'm going to screw you senseless later," she promises.
"Ok."
Glory rubs her hands together in anticipation. "Lets go kill a Slayer."
"Lets not."
"What!"
"It was why I waited to tell you and before you hit me..." which Kal can see from the look in her eye she is planning to, "just hear me out."
"You have one minute."
"We know the girl is the Key. We can take her any time we want but why don't we have some fun with this."
Glory's brow furrows slightly.
"Just think on it. We can play one big long game on the Slayer. Watch her and laugh as she tries to what she thinks is keep her sister's true nature a secret. Just think of the look on her face when the time comes to end it and you tell her this."
Glory has to admit that does sound fun. "Alright. I'll go along with it for now but as soon as I get bored I'm taking my Key and killing that Slayer."
"Fine."
Glory eyes Kal for a moment. "Hmm. You know you have this whole devious side I never imagined."
"Well you said for me to stop thinking like a human. I guess this is what you get."
Buffy listens to Glory recite the story. "Y-You-you've..."
"Been playing you sweetie until the time came to swat you like the bug you are. It has been so much fun! Kidnapping your little blond vampire and yes I did torture him for the sheer sake of it. That was a kick. It also kept you thinking that I didn't know where my little Key was. Then there was killing your dear old mom."
Buffy grits her teeth against the pain. If only she could move she would get Glory. Her mom...oh god her mom. That hurt so much. Much more than this ever can.
Glory taps her chin with her finger. "Lets see what else. Oh yes. Old Benny boy! That...now that was classic having him seduce you only you didn't quite fall for his charms. Still he got close enough for you to trust him. I'll get back onto old Benjy in a minute because there is more to that story."
Glory takes a second to wipe a smudge off Buffy's cheek. "There now. Can't have you look messy for your own funeral. Now what did we do next? Oh yes the little blond witch. Complete set up to get you here. By the way that was a good plan to try and weaken me by stealing the energy back and it might have worked 6 months ago. One flaw though. You were working on a false assumption. You based everything, your whole plan, on the single premise that I was a weakened power imprisoned in a cell of flesh. You must have noticed by how much sense I am making right now how that no longer is true."
Glory points at Kal. "He freed me and every day that has passed since I have gotten stronger, my powers have grown, internally I reverted back to my true form and this body, as fantastically perfect as it is, all you see now is little more than a façade. That means when your witch tried to drain me it took no more than a mere fleck of my power to reverse the spell and suck her brains. Now then that brings me back onto Ben because you see I was freed by separating me and him and originally I was planning to torture him in unspeakable ways for an inordinate length of time. However when Kal suggested we play some games with you he came up with the delightful idea idea of using Ben in the way we did."
Kal was trying to be ironic. Human emotions, human ways of thinking cost Clark Kent everything he held dear. Seemed only fitting somehow to use that ploy on Buffy Summers with Ben as the instrument to do it.
Glory continues, "Now you probably want to rage at Ben but he wasn't doing it of his own free will. I took that away. Benjamin was just my little puppet on a string."
Buffy can hear Dawn quietly sob and only wishes she could apologise for her failure. She has been played royally and can see that her end has come if only Glory would stop torturing her with the incessant talking.
Glory strokes some of Buffy's hair off her face. "You are probably wondering why I chose to end it when I did. Well after your little red-haired witch attacked me lets just say I was no longer having fun. Although the road chase between you guys in the Winnebago and the Knights of Loserville was amusing. If it means anything for you to know this I was going to take little Dawnie there in a couple of days anyway since as you know the conjunction was approaching. The best bit though of your little escape attempt was when you called Ben for help and I saw a chance for one last game. 'Ben' was me using a glamour spell."
Glory can see Buffy's eyes drift to Kal. "Oh. You're wondering why he didn't do a great deal of fighting. Simple. Because I told him not to. I get bored very easily and beating you up was alleviating my boredom. That and the two of us combined would have killed you in a few seconds or you would have figured out just how outclassed you were and tried to run away. Now we couldn't have that could we. That would have brought this little game to an end far too soon and we would not have had as nearly as much fun," she says with a self-satisfied dark chuckle as she remembers everything she and Kal did and how amusing it all was.
Glory strokes Buffy's hair some more her fingers straying to the place they would if she was going to feed off Buffy. "I thought about feeding off of you but I decided against it. I want that tiny little chemical engine you call a brain to work as well as it can so you fully understand just how pathetically small and insignificant you are...how much of a failure you are," Glory says with particular glee at rubbing it in.
Glory lets go of Buffy's face and walks away a few paces. "You once speculated why as a God I couldn't throw fire balls or lightning bolts or so on and so forth. When you said it I couldn't. Now however..." Glory raises her hand above her head and dark clouds form above Sunnydale. Thunder and lightning soon crack the heavens. "Now I can and hopefully now just before you die you understand. This fight only lasted this long because I let it. You only got up here because I allowed it. From the day I was separated from Ben the only gift you had left to give this world was your death."
'Death is your gift.'
"May whatever God you believe in have mercy on your soul Buffy Summers because this one doesn't. Bye bye now!"
Next thing Dawn knows she is being lifted up and away from the tower in Kal's arms. She then watches as lightning shoots down from the sky above and strikes her sister. Buffy's screams will haunt her for the rest of her life whatever remains of it.
When it is over all that is left of Buffy is a charred smoking corpse. Glory takes a few steps forward to look at it close up. How long had she imagined this and now here it was. The Slayer dead. She looks up to see Kal using his newly acquired power of flight as he holds her Key in his strong arms. Tears run down the young teenage girl's face. They don't move Glory.
Glory takes one moment to recall everything that has happened this last year and a triumphant smile comes to her lips.
She is free and restored to her true self.
The Slayer is dead.
She has her Key.
She has her Consort.
Her time to rule once again has come.
This truly is a Glory-ous victory.
The End.
Author's Note: As I promised a follow-up to my Glory-ous Alliance story. Oh dear poor Buffy. She was way out of league in this one wasn't she but my thought was that Buffy could never defeat Glory and Kal together therefore it only lasted for as long as they wanted it to last. I don't think I'm quite done with this particular universe yet. I have a couple more ideas. Thanks to everyone who has written reviews.