Back to the Light
Chapter Four
Giles watched as Dawn struggled to pull the old radio apart on the kitchen table. She'd already unscrewed the back plate and was now using the screwdriver as a lever on the uncooperative part. Her tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth.
"Careful." He warned almost in spite of himself. "You don't want to cut yourself."
She nodded, even though he was fairly sure she was not listening and with a grunt prised the back off. As the whole thing slipped cables, wires and springs virtually exploded out. A part of Giles winced, it was an antique and could have been worth a bit to the right collector.
Five minutes with a determined teenage girl and like so many things it was a pile of junk.
"Good work Dawn." Buffy said in her new accent, coming out of the basement with a large flat box. Willow just behind her with another.
"What else did you find useful down there?" Giles asked, not sure if he was going to like the answer.
Willow answered. "An old wind up alarm clock, a broken toaster and a train set."
"A train set?" Dawn asked
"Don't worry, I'm going to smash it." Buffy explained, putting the box down and opening it up. "It's going to be a shame, but I need the motors."
"Cool." Dawn sounded far too enthusiastic.
"My God, was all that down there?" Joyce asked, coming into the kitchen just behind the others
"And a load more junk that might be useful later." Buffy admitted, "but right now this is what I need. You got the locket?"
"Right here." Xander said holding it up. "Tara took one look at it and it gave her the wiggins.
Giles happened to look over to Buffy at that point and he saw her face pale at the sight of the thing. "Xander. Put it down." She said slowly.
"Is it… whispering?" Dawn asked.
"Uh huh." Buffy agreed, even though Giles couldn't hear anything
"I don't hear it." Xander announced.
"Still put it down. Remember the box at the shop." Giles pointed out.
"Carefully." Buffy said.
"Hold on. I get why you can hear something, but how can Dawn when I can't either?" Willow asked.
Giles felt a sudden lurch in his gut. Dawn's true origins had just become a lot more complex. Buffy just shrugged. "No idea. Age, time spent near this thing, bad luck. All of the above. What's important here is that something is in there." Her eyes went hard as her expression darkened. Buffy looked much older than she was with that set on her face. "Don't listen to it. It's promises or offers. They're lies. They will say anything." She warned and turned to Dawn. "That goes double for you."
The teenager backed off slightly. Away from both the locket and Buffy. Not that Giles could blame her.
Xander put it down on the edge of the countertop and stepped away.
"Xander, give us a hand here." Buffy asked, tipping her box of train parts over the floor.
Giles had some trouble following what she did next. Stripping down the broken objects and putting them back together in an ungainly and messy lump. With both Dawn and Xander helping out she seemed to be doing two, or more, things at once. The strange tools from the holster on her leg paired wires and welded metal one moment and bent slivers of old metal the next.
All the time Buffy gave odd and somewhat contradictory instructions to her two assistants. Giles felt she was somewhat guessing, running on some higher instinct. Her new abilities giving Buffy an insight he couldn't begin to explain.
He also kept a close eye on Dawn. While enthusiastic she didn't have Buffy's confidence or skill. Still he resolved to watch both Summers girls more closely. If Dawn had the potential to change as Buffy had he didn't want to think of the consequences.
"Giles." Willow said quietly, getting his attention and pulling him away into the dining room where she, Tara and Joyce had retreated to.
"Tara and I did some scrying on that locket." She whispered.
Giles took a breath. The warning of Buffy and Willow's recent reckless behaviour all the more alarming. "That was dangerous." He told her.
"I was careful. We didn't get much. There's something in there. Something old. Powerful. And it's waking up."
"Of that I have no doubt." Giles polished his glasses. At this rate he was going to wear a hole in them. "Willow you have to be more careful. From now on I would appreciate it if you are going to experiment that you tell me in advance." He looked over her shoulder. "The same goes for you Tara. We are already dealing with things far outside my experience and are embroiled in dangerous situations. I don't want to add even more complications."
"Sorry Mr Giles. It… it was my idea." Tara muttered.
"It's alright. We need as much information as we can get, but please ask me before you do anything like that again."
"There's something more." Willow told him. "It's hard to focus on. It's like it tricks your eye, the more you try to focus on it the more difficult it becomes."
Giles looked to the Locket and she was right. His glance seemed to slide away, like a bar of soap in the bath. It wasn't that he couldn't see it. More he didn't want to. "More magic?"
"If, if it is it's very subtle and strong to last years." Tara suggested. "It's a good way to keep hidden, not wanting to be seen. It's what took us so long. Mrs Summers kept missing it. We all did."
With the effect of the spell Giles could easily imagine it lost in a jewellery case, forever pushed aside. Unremarkable and unnoticed. Even now, knowing it was happening Giles was finding hard to keep his attention on the Locket. "Ladies, when you have an opportunity I want you to research this effect."
"I thought you didn't want us using magic." Willow objected sarcastically.
"You can research without using your talents." He pointed out. "Specifically I want you to find a way to detect and counter this, whatever you want to call it."
Willow frowned for a moment and then realised where he was going with that. A spell that didn't make thing's invisible, but unnoticed could be anywhere and on anything. Hiding in plain sight. Giles had the impression people would walk past, around and even over an object like this and be aware of nothing.
In the wrong hands a truly terrifying concept.
"Mr Giles, you're talking about dangers. Are my daughters safe in there?" Joyce asked.
"In all honesty, I don't know." He admitted. "All I can be certain of is that our world has become exponentially more complicated. If you will excuse me."
With that Giles extracted himself and headed back to the kitchen. There Buffy had put her glasses back on, only this time clipped to the arms and rim were a series of lenses each one on a complicated system of levers. The result looked somewhat like a deconstructed jeweller's eye piece.
With a surprisingly steady but fast hand she was making minor adjustments to the device. The device that looked like a modern art sculpture designed to appear like a bomb detonating in junk bin.
What were obviously once model railway tracks coiled and curved around the outer edges. Surrounding a pattern of vacuum tubes, wires and what looked to be the mechanism from the clock All arranged together to delicately support a single chunk of Bakelite that had been cut into a circle.
Off to one side the radio had been put back together, somewhat. The speaker had been put back in place and the dials replaced with track switches.
All this was wired into the mains by what looked to be the remains of the toaster.
"What is that?" He asked.
"Well, it's complicated." Buffy said looking up. "So from the research Willow found we know that the mind of whoever's responsible for all this is in that Locket."
"We do?" Xander asked.
"We do. At least I did." Buffy shrugged. "We also know if we open that thing whoever's inside is going to wake up and try to take over my mind. No thank you very much. So we need a way of reading a mind without, you know, opening it."
Giles nodded. "And this will do that?"
"Maybe. See, I was thinking what is a mind? Well it's basically the software to the brain's hardware, right? We can see a brain working with one of those electromagnetic thingies. That's how they saw what was in mom's head. What's in that Locket must be another brain to hold their mind."
Giles followed that thought. "So you've built a homemade EKG machine and you think it's powerful and sensitive enough to pick up mental impulses from the Locket."
"That or fry an egg at six paces." She shrugged back and glanced at Dawn
Giles followed and saw Dawn was making tinfoil hats of all things. "We're doomed." He said aloud as the teenager put one on.
—-
Willow put on the tinfoil hat. "This going to help?"
"Can't hurt." Xander said. He had folded his tinfoil into a paper pirate hat. Everyone had gathered around in the kitchen and were now wearing the hats. "Besides, you're the science nerd. What do you think?"
Willow shrugged back. "The idea might work." She admitted skeptically, "but I'm not sure. I mean these things are usually the size of this room and Buffy's is on the table." The Slayer come who knew what was putting the finishing touches to her creation.
"So she IS Buffy now." Xander asked quietly.
Willow hid a shudder, remembering what she had been shown. "I think it's more Buffy is her now. Even if we find a way to get old Buffy back I don't know if we should anymore. She showed me something. Something world changing."
"You alright?"
"Between that and the Eye thing?" She asked. "I've got a lot to think through."
"Same. It's like when we first found out about Vampires. I thought we knew everything, now we know how much we don't know." He frowned.
Buffy, who had been obviously listening, looked up and winked at them. "You have no idea."
"You really don't." Willow agreed.
"Right then." Buffy stood up and took the tinfoil hat Dawn had made for her. "Everyone ready?
"As we'll ever be." Giles replied.
Buffy nodded and turned to the Locket at the opposite counter top with what looked like genuine fear. She sighed and after a moment grabbed a rubber glove from the sink. She then put it on, and an oven mitt over that.
Finally she raided a draw and pulled an out a pair of rubberised kitchen tongs. Then, looking ridiculous with all the precautions, she picked up the locket by the chain with the tongs like it was a live and very poisonous snake
"Dawnie, can you go to the other side of the table. Now. Please."
Dawn looked like she was about to object when the two Summers girls suddenly glared at the watch. Willow got a pricking at the back of her neck and she suddenly felt Tara take her hand.
There was no sound, more the impression that sound should have been.
Dawn backed away as Buffy held the Locket over the sink. "You better not make a threat like that again." She said between clenched teeth. "Or you're going down the sewer."
As Dawn came around Giles wordlessly slipped past Willow and put himself between them and the Locket.
"It's awake?" Willow asked.
"Sorta" Buffy answered. "Whoever in here is definitely waking up."
With that she moved. For a moment it looked like she was struggling, but eventually she placed the Locket on the tiny plate and she too backed away. Pulling the other half of the device as far as she could with her.
"Start at low power." Willow said needlessly. "Build it gradually."
"Good idea." Buffy agreed and flicked the jury rigged switch.
When nothing exploded Willow let out a breath she didn't know she was holding.
Buffy, very very carefully, began increasing power. The frequency line on the radio creeped up the scale with almost painful slowness.
As it rose so did a whisper. At first Willow thought she was hearing things but when she tried to listen more closely she could pick it out. Not one thing, but several. All the same voice saying the same things over and over. Willow could make out what but it was definitely there.
"You guys hear that?" Xander asked.
"We do." Buffy's mom said. "I can't tell what they're saying, but I hear them."
Buffy played with the controls some more and the layers began to fade. All but one. "What, what is happening?" The voice said over and over again.
"We're listening to you now. All of us." Buffy said sternly. "Now you must hear us."
The voice broke up with another barrage of half heard words before it settled down to one sentence. "Who… Who is there?" Their voice was English, but not Giles or Spike English. Willow could almost hear the sneer from someone born to the rich upper class. It also sounded like a woman's voice.
"Hi. I'm Buffy, and I have questions."
"Where… where is… where is my body?" They asked. "I sense it. It… It is close. Open. Open the Locket. Realise me. Me. I."
Buffy set her shoulders. "Answer my questions first."
More multi-layered words, followed by; "Body… mine. My body. Realise me. I will tell you. Realise me and I will answer."
Buffy shook her head. "No, that's not the way this is going to work. I ask, you answer. Who are you?"
"Why won't you open?" They asked back. "I can answer, I only ask you open the Locket."
"You know why." Buffy growled. "Now stop playing dumb and start answering"
"Or the sewer?"
"That's a start."
The whispering voice was silent for a moment. "I will answer." They said eventually. The whisper gone and now in full voice. There were still echoes, but it was a lot clearer.
"Good. Now, I'm Buffy. Who are you?"
"I am you, my dear." They said sharply. "The real you, the true you."
"And does the true me have a name?" Buffy wouldn't let up.
"I have dozens, hundreds." They admitted. "To most I am called The Rani."
"Rani?"
"The Rani." The voice corrected. "You may call me such. When I have my body back."
Buffy folded her arms. "That might be difficult. It's occupied at the moment."
"You?"
"Me."
"You are nothing. A story, a lie spun from necessity and my imagination. Obey me. Open the Locket."
Buffy set the device with a look she usually reserved for vampires that annoyed her. "No."
"You cannot disobey me." The trapped voice disagreed. "You have no choice, you must."
"I must do a lot of things." Buffy didn't budge. "Doing what you say is not one of them."
There was a long feeling pause. "What has happened?"
Buffy, glare still on her face, nodded. "Well let's see. Your TARDIS crashed into the hellmouth. A hole in the world that's often hungry and leads to hell. Or several Hell dimensions. We're not sure which and not that eager to find out. Your Capsule got damaged. Cracked the containment on the Eye and opened up its core. Emergency procedures took over and I'm guessing because I was a lot closer than you in your Locket here it took steps.
"Dumped a whole boat load of technical stuff in my coconut and made me like you were. I fixed the damage and now we're looking for answers. You have them, hence this little interview."
"You must… you have to…"
"Think release one more time and I'm turning this whole thing off. You can scream in the silence of your little trinket for the rest of time." Buffy warned.
"You do not understand." They pleaded but Buffy was unmoved.
"I will, when you can be bothered to explain."
Another long pause. "I was a scientist." They began. "I expanded knowledge. There was a war. They came for me, but I am not some mindless thug or something discarded on a forgotten battlefield. I am The Rani.
"I left them to their amusements and chose to continue my research here, on this backwards planet in this ignorant time."
"In other words you ran away." Buffy corrected."You're a coward"
"I am a biologist!" The voice objected. "Not a warrior. At best the High Council would use my knowledge to create armies to be slaughtered. At worst bio-weapons that would plague the galaxies. I will not have my knowledge wasted, twisted to that extent. Even I have my limits.
Buffy nodded. "Sorry."
"I used the Arch. Separating my mind and body. I then regressed my physical form to that of an infant and arranged to be adopted by a simple human family."
"Until now, where circumstances leave us here." Buffy finished for them.
"Yes, and now you must re… Return me to where I belong. It is the only way."
Buffy raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Or?"
"I, my people, are not like you. Like you were. We are ancient, beyond. We are Lords of Time. Your human mind cannot understand."
"I'm a quick study." Buffy pointed out.
"Not quick enough." The Rani objected. "I know the human mind. Primitive. Barely evolved. Ignorant. You may think you know, but you don't."
The voice took a different approach. "Worse, if you do not you condemn me to this. I will be imprisoned here, locked away for all eternity. That is my body, you are stealing it. Stealing my life.
"You've threatened to leave me here, but if you don't open the Locket then that is the fate you choose for me. Can you do that? Can you steal my existence for your own?"
—
They had gathered in the living room, away from the kitchen, to talk about what they had learnt. "You can't be seriously thinking about this?" She asked. "You can't want to sacrifice your life for theirs!"
"You heard them, it's not my life."
"If they are telling the truth." Willow said.
"Will's got a point." Xander spoke up. "This could all be a lie."
"Doesn't feel like one." Buffy said grimly. "The only way we're going to get anywhere is debate club rules. Giles. You up for the pro delete Buffy side?"
"You're asking if I can play devil's advocate?"
"You want to put it that way."
"Alright." He agreed, not looking happy about it.
"That's a terrible thing to do to someone." Joyce told her eldest daughter.
"Someone has to do it and Giles is the best one for the job."
"Thanks." He said dryly
"Giles of all of us you can put your heart and feelings aside. You know how to do the right thing, even if it kills you to do it. Will, you've got the whole skeptical thing already. Mom, you're team Buffy." She suggested. "What we missing?"
"If we think of something we'll let you know." Xander suggested.
"Good. So Giles, you're up."
The former school Librarian took a moment. "Morally it is simple. Condemn someone to eternal imprisonment or return to them their freedom. There is no justification for that form of torture. Buffy, you have a chance to save someone from that fate. It's a high price, but one you would pay."
"Even if it costs Buffy her life?" Joyce objected.
"It's her choice." Giles pointed out. "The fact she hasn't already dismissed it out of hand and we're having this debate proves she believes is a viable option."
Joyce spun on her daughter, "That's not true! It can't be!"
Buffy half shrugged apologetically.
"Buffy no!" Joyce half shouted, she couldn't… she wouldn't.
"I don't want to." She admitted "It's just, it's hard to explain. This new me, it's a lot guys. There's so much going on in here and I feel it, I can taste it all." She closed her eyes and let out a breath. "I know where each of you are. To half an inch. I can see the corner of Giles handkerchief that's still sticking out of his pocket, to the crumb of sand in the corner of Dawn's eye. I could count Willow's eyelashes from memory alone." She opened her eyes and smiled sadly. "Remember when I had those psychic powers and all those voices overflowing overwhelmed me? It's like that, only I can survive it."
"I saw. At least Buffy tried to show me in the basement." Willow explained. "I wouldn't want to guess how her brain works now."
"Cool." Joyce's youngest said, surprisingly enthusiastic.
"Thing is I'm still learning. The Rani in there knows so much more. What's out there, waiting. What could be coming. We need everything we can get."
"What could be coming?" Xander asked a fraction before Giles could.
"I've got a feeling. A hunch." She said gravely, looking out the window. "Things are happening already. Not sure if this new me is to blame, or if I can just see it a little better now. Little pieces are slipping into place a little too perfectly." Buffy shook her head. "Puppets always see the strings a minute late and a dollar short."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Don't know yet. Tomorrow's problems, no need to go borrowing them today. What I'm saying is The Rani is a lot cleverer than me and we might need that before long. If I can convince her to help she could be a lot more help than me."
"Sounds like you've already made up your mind." Xander accused.
"No way!" Buffy laughed. "I just see the possibility. Doesn't mean she will do anything. For all I know she'll make like Faith and take this body to Australia and start again, or whatever."
"Urm, I have a question." Tara put a hand up.
"You don't need to do that."
"Oh." The girl blushed. "I just didn't understand something. The voice said she made her body, Buffy, a child. How?"
"The arch." Buffy explained. "She used it to regress…" Joyce's daughter trailed off. "Tara, you're a genius!" She shouted and gave her a hug. "Willow, you are a very lucky girl, anyone ever tell you that?"
Both Wiccan's blushed at that.
"What?" Xander asked, confused, but Buffy was already stalking back to the kitchen.
"You still there?" She asked
"Where would I go? Idiot child." The voice from the Locket hissed.
"Just checking you weren't out for another twenty year long nap." Buffy joked back. "Here's the deal. This life is mine now. Might not have been your plan but that's life I guess. When I get too old, badly hurt or something goes so wrong there's no other option I open you and it's your turn again."
"No!"
"Shouldn't be too much of a problem for you. You made yourself young once, you can do it again."
"It doesn't work like that." They snapped back. "It's a complicated process, it might not work. Too many things can go wrong. You could be badly damaged and too far from the Locket."
Buffy shrugged. "I could be hit by a car tomorrow. You pays your money and you take your chances."
"No! I can't trust you."
"Honestly it's the best you're going to get."
There was a pause where a number is whispers overlapped each other. "What are your terms, exactly?"
"Just as I said. Basically you get this body when I'm finished."
"A standard human lifespan?"
Buffy paused. "Human?"
"Another fifty years."
"How long would this body of ours last otherwise?" Buffy asked, curious.
The Locket didn't answer.
"More? Less?"
"I will agree to a human life span."
"And you'll want to be extra helpful in the meantime."
"Curse you!" The voice swore suddenly. "This confounded device! I cannot lie! Longer. My bodies can last up to two hundred years. Each."
"Each?"
"Rassilon's teeth! Your species is infuriating. Yes, each. The regression to childhood. It cost me a Regeneration. When old or injured I can regenerate my physical form. Rebuild anew, from the ground up. It is painful, and limited. I can only do this a certain amount of times and I have only a few left."
"How few."
"Four. Maybe five."
"And then?"
"We die. Finally."
Buffy looked back at Joyce and the others. "So what you're saying is that in like a hundred and seventy years I'll be the human equivalent of ninety."
A long pause. "Yes, but like you said. You could still be hit by a car tomorrow."
Buffy smiled, a brilliant thousand watt smile Joyce hadn't seen in so long. "So we have a deal?" She asked. "This Regeneration is mine, you can have it after."
End Chapter Four.