Buffy gasps as she regains consciousness all of a sudden. Holding down her panic as she's been trained to do, she reaches out to examine her surroundings. Good news, she's not restrained; bad news, she's in a padded box. Worse news, someone's taken her amp.
Closing her eyes, she concentrates on her body, feeling how it moves and her senses. She's lying on her back, which means gravity. She's not wearing her Tenno armour; someone has put her in some flimsy fabric clothing. Knocking on the walls and surfaces of the box reveals a slight difference in sound from the top, as well as an organic rather than metal sound. Taking a deep breath, she realises that the warm feeling isn't the temperature, it's the air.
"Void damn it, I need to chance it."
Carefully pulling on the void, she pulls it around her and slips through the barrier between the world and the void. A flex of her will sends her hurtling skywards, and she releases the void reflexively when she sees the moon floating in the night sky.
"Oof" Buffy is pulled out of her shock by the ground as she lands on ground, hard. As she lays there, she stares at the moon, "When did they fix Lua?"
After a moment, she starts to make out the sounds of screaming, and some brrr'ing noise that seems like it should be familiar. Cautiously, she gets to her feet and looks around. As she looks behind her, she freezes as she spots a headstone with a written epitaph on it. What causes her pause is that the language looks familiar, as if it was something she dreamt about many years ago. Another scream breaks her attention, and she turns towards it before heading out in an economical jog.
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By the time Buffy gets to the nearby civilian outpost, the screams have stopped, and the brrr'ing sounds have moved off elsewhere. Cautiously, she moves along the road made from some sort of black stone. As she does, she looks at the strange dwellings, as they're illuminated by the scattered fires. Their walls so thin they wouldn't provide any protection against even light weapons, let alone the standard weapons used by the Grineer. Even so, something tugs on her memory, like déjà vu. As she comes across the first ground vehicle, that feeling intensifies, even as she reaches out to one of the unbroken viewing panels and snaps it between a couple of fingers, the clear material shattering into small cubes. Brushing her fingers off, she frowns as the wound doesn't seem to be healing at the rate she expected. Once she has time in a safe place, she'll need to mediate on the Vazarin school, as she has no warframe or amp.
Slowly, she makes her way down the street, her senses alert. As she's looking around, she bumps into one of the ground vehicles, and an alarm starts blaring. Crouching down, she looks around cautiously just in case the noise attracts any Grineer, or worse. From the nearest dwelling, a human man exits holding a gun, and shouts at her.
"By the Queens!", Buffy exclaims as she holds her hands to her forehead as the words trigger a searing headache. As the man shouts at her again, and fires his gun in the air, she stumbles away from the dwelling as a ringing pain shoots through her head.
A short while later, she's moved away from the residential part of the outpost, to some sort of storage area. The large buildings and wide spaces inviting aerial assault, and she still can't see any signs of a shield protecting the outpost, Orokin or otherwise. As her headache is starting to clear up, her sense of déjà vu is becoming stronger. Off to the right, in a large open space between buildings, she can hear a male talking. Shaking her head to try and clear it of the lingering pain, she makes her way into the space, her presence masked by the light of a large bonfire. By the fire, there is a group of people that could be some sort of new Grineer clone, or maybe infested humans. Either way, they seem to have caught a corpus with a high quality body prosthetic. Around the group are some two wheeled ground vehicles. As she sneaks closer, the leader says something, and four of the group go to the ground vehicles and start them. As they do, the source of the brr'ing sound she was hearing becomes apparent. The leader then takes a small gun and points it to the sky. As he does, Buffy notices the chains wrapped around the arms and legs of the corpus. Before she can do anything to help, he fires, and the ground vehicles accelerate in opposite directions. As the chains go taut, they pull the corpus' arms and legs off, as her body collapses to the floor, and her power fails.
As Buffy stands there in stunned silence, the people notice her in the flashing of the lights mounted on the ground vehicles. As the leader says something, and the members of his group turn to her with body language the easily speaks of violence, Buffy raises her hand and releases her control over her void energies, only for nothing to happen. Realising that she hasn't finished recovering from whatever was done to her before she ended up in the box, she turns and runs from the group. It seems like she's easily about to out pace the once on foot, however, two of the ones on ground vehicles have taken an alternative way through the outpost to reach her. As they make their way down the road, the reason for the black stone becomes clear. Ducking beneath their makeshift weapons, Buffy desperately looks for a way out. Spotting some stacked pallets against a wall, she gathers her void energies, and void jumps through one of the strange people, and then hops over the wall. There, she lands in a cluttered alleyway, that looks like it should be impassable to the ground vehicles she's seen. Hopefully they don't have any air vehicles.
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After a short walk, she runs out of impassable alleyway. There, she cautiously listens to her surroundings for the brr of the ground vehicles engines. Hearing them off to the right, she turns left and almost walks into a group of armed civilians. A tall man, with short dark hair and fair skin carries an axe. Then there's a woman with red hair carrying a crude crossbow, and the last two women are unarmed and look to have bleached their hair. Why would they bleach their hair, why not just… As she takes in their faces, her headache returns full force.
As she shies backwards, cringing inward, the one with the red hair says something and then she says her name, "Buffy. Buffy?" Each word is like a hammer blow to her head.
Desperately, she turns and runs in the opposite direction, taking the first left that looks like it's impassable to ground vehicles. Is this another one of Teshin's memory tests that he's dragged out of the pits of Mercury? No, Teshin's dead. He died buying time for her to get to the Lotus. Skidding to a stop, she looks around at the small courtyard she's run into. Looking up, she sees a roof she should be able to void jump to. Pulling in the void, she releases it to no effect, as a flash of a rickety tower stabs through her mind. Unable to focus enough to use her void training, Buffy instead finds some cover that should hide her from the entrance. There she crouches down and cradles her head.
It's only a few minutes later when the civilians catch up with her again, and they start talking to her again.
Buffy tries to say, "Are you all idiots, get to cover." Instead, it comes out as a pained mumble, as they keep saying her name. She doesn't notice as the conversation abruptly moves away from her to the group of people that she ran from in the first place. However, when they start to fight, it draws her attention, as it's something she knows how to do. As she brings her focus to bear, her headache fades to the background, until, finally, it's light enough for her to act. Smoothly she steps between the man and an enemy with a basic club, raising her arm to block the strike on the wielders wrists as she's been taught. As the attackers grip is loosened by the block, she reaches up and wrenches the club away, before kicking the attacker into a nearby wall. Ducking down, under a whirling chain, she brings the club round behind the chain wielders knee, causing him to crumple to the floor. Before she can take advantage, another attacker lunges at her with a knife, forcing her to dodge backwards, away from his comrade.
Instead of running, the civilians instead join in the attack. Which, in any other situation would be laudable, but right now, with the void damned headache, it's reducing her ability to manage the battle. Bringing her club up between the crossbow wielding woman and a chain wielding attacker puts her out of position, and so she takes a punishing blow to her ribs. Then the damn woman has to shout something followed by her name, which sends a spike of pain through her head once more, and the club falls from her suddenly limp hand.
While she's distracted, the others surround her and start to beat on her as the leader casually heads towards the civilians while talking. Desperately, she reaches through the pain to release a contamination wave that knocks the attackers around her off their feet. Quickly grabbing the club again, she brings it around and slams it into the side of one of the attackers to the loud crack of broken ribs. Smoothly following through with an overhand strike on the opponent behind her, the club crushes straight through his head as though his natural resistance didn't exist. As the surviving followers back up with the sudden turn around, Buffy lunges for the leader, catching him around the head with a quick swing. As the leader crumples to the ground, Buffy knows that she hasn't killed him, as she didn't feel the crunch that indicates something important broke. However, the civilians should be able to take care of him now he's down.
Turning back to the followers, she quickly runs off after them, only to stop as she rounds a corner and spots a rickety tower made from scaffolding poles. As it comes into view, a memory takes her to the floor with pain. She's standing on that tower, speaking to a girl on the verge of womanhood, in the same language the civilians were using. Below them, a void portal opens up between, between… Slamming her fist on the floor, she swears as the memory slips away. That's the second time that tower has appeared in her memories, maybe if she confronts them there, she'll be able to break through the block. The same way she did with Teshin's test in front of the Queens.
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Standing at the top of the tower, Buffy looks at the metal plank that over hangs the smooth stone floor below. Breathing slowly and deeply to stave off the memories, she looks around for places she can void jump to if the whole thing falls down. Once she's sure she can get to safety, she carefully makes her way to the end of the plank and looks down.
There's a flash of memory, and she's watching drops of blood falling to the ground below, before sparking a void portal, which grows halfway between the plank and the ground. Then she runs off the plank and dives into the portal.
Then the memory starts again, a bit earlier, and she standing in front of a girl that looks so familiar. Looking behind her she watches the sun rise, before turning back to the girl. As she turns away again, the girl says, "Buffy, no."
As she steps away, Buffy responds, "Dawnie, I have to."
Then the girl, Dawn?, says "Buffy?" Wait, that's wrong, she didn't say that.
Confused, Buffy turns around to look back at the ladder down, and the girl from the memory steps out from behind one of the supports wearing a red jumper with a sparkly fleur de les on the front. Blinking a couple of times as the incongruity between what Dawn was wearing in the memory, and what she's wearing now, sends her mind reeling.
As Buffy's looking at her, confused, Dawn says her name again followed by some words that feel like they should make sense. Then the girl steps towards her, causing the tower to shake. As it does, the memory comes back again stronger than before, so Buffy turns around to look at what's happening.
While she's lost in the memory, Dawn tries talking to her, but Buffy doesn't understand until she says, "Buffy *** Dawn, **** sister."
[AN: conversation paraphrased from Buffy season 6, episode 2]
Eventually, the memory plays its course, and Buffy is left looking at the skyline, her memories of this life starting to come back. Hesitantly, she says, "Is this Demios?"
Surprised, Dawn reflexively asks, "What?"
Turning around, Buffy looks in Dawn's eyes, "Is this Demios? Have I been swallowed by a Jugulus?"
Dawn reaches out, "No! Buffy, no! You're here, with me. Whatever happened to you, whatever you've been through. It's over now. You're…" Dawn shrieks as the tower lurches with an ominous squeal of metal.
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As the tower stabilises again, there's a touch of hysteria in Dawns voice as she calls out, "We have to get off this tower." However, Buffy is lost in memory again, and turns back to look at the scene below.
Pleading, Dawn calls out, "Buffy, I need you to live! You told me to be strong, and I tried, I really tried. I promise that I'll do better. Just, please come back to me."
As she steps forward, her weight causes the pressure to release on one of the supporting brackets, and it slips off the bolt it was bracing just before it moves into tension. As it falls to the floor below, the whole tower lurches, and Dawn desperately clutches at a support as she slips to her knees. As she screams, Buffy turns around with an unfamiliar look on her face. A couple of quick steps later and she scoops Dawn up in a bridal carry, before turning around and running for the plank again.
Dawn screams as Buffy suicidally jumps off the plank, and then everything goes grey for a moment, before jumping several times. When the world comes back into colour, Dawn is shivering, and her lips and fingertips have turned blue. However, they have landed on one of the nearby factory roofs. As Buffy turns around, Dawn can't help but look back as the tower collapses in on itself. Once the rubble has settled, Buffy steps off the building, and Dawn lets out another shriek as the world momentarily goes grey again.
Once they're back on tera firma, Buffy puts Dawn down. As soon as she's standing again, Dawn turns to Buffy, and blows on her fingers. Buffy says something she doesn't understand, but Dawn doesn't care. All that matters is that her sisters back again. That's when the adrenaline from the tower drains from her, and she starts to cry happy tears.
Reaching out, she tentatively touches Buffy's cheek with her hand, "You're here, you're really here."
Buffy smiles at her, before taking both her hands, and putting them under her armpits. Dawn doesn't care, she's got her sister back, so she just leans into Buffy's chest with a smile.
