A/N Nidhogg32, Sphygmus, the idea of someone being made for you, created loving you, as is the case of Dawn's crush on Xander, sounds like the Pandora myth. The gods created Pandora as a "gift", a distracting gift, on purpose and she's given a box (or jar) with a curse for mankind, all the evils man had never known before. Xander is distracted by Dawn and her curse and Buffy is primed to bring about Twilight. A stretch?
A review on another story suggested the possibility that either several Big Bads, like Glory, The First and Twilight were working together or one of them manipulated the other two because there were a lot of interesting 'coincidences' that worked out for The First and later Twilight. 😚
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"Tarnis may have been a Seer of some sort." Diana informed the other three the next morning, Mason having arrived after ensuring Brother Michael was safely aboard the Chase's plane. "As he seems aware of events involving something he calls Glorificus." She read from the copy of the fax to the others. "He never states he or anyone he knows actually witnessed any of the events recorded in his book. Nor does he attribute his knowledge to word of mouth. His book says she arrived in our dimension amid 'chaos and destruction.' But makes no mention of exactly when she arrived or how or which exactly her dimension of origin is, the book has no dates and the Watchers Council isn't sure how long it's been in their possession."
"What does it say about her, this Abomination, as Brother Michael called it?" Mason asked.
Diana took a deep breath and forced herself to relax. "Being in our dimension affects her mentally, the longer she's here, the more her mind breaks down."
"Oh great, an insane abomination." Faith muttered. "That just fills me with confidence." She growled and Jesse offered silent support by rubbing her shoulder. "Insane people can be unpredictable."
"She compensates by draining energy from the human mind." Diana refused to suger coat it, these three and herself had been dragged into this mess and had no choice but to face it. "She drains the energies that bind the mind into a cohesive whole, to quote Tarnis "
"She's a brain sucker?!" Jesse yelped. "That's different, in all the studying we've done I've never read anything about something that sucks someone's brain out!"
"Not the brain itself, the energies of the mind." Diana corrected. "It keeps her sane, but leaves her victim insane. But people who are insane, whether because of her or some other cause, can see the truth of her. Seers and other such psychics can as well."
"Which means Xander and Cordelia might be able to see her." Mason suggested. "Since they're training to use their abilities to their fullest. But they're in England right now, should we send for them?"
"We can talk about that later, there's more from the book we need to go over." Diana answered grimly. "Glorificus isn't a demon, she's something we've never had to deal with before, she's a god."
Blank looks as the three of them tried to process the thought of a god, an actual god and possibly fighting said god. "Come again?" Faith asked, confused. "Gods don't walk on Earth anymore, they haven't since the Accords and I don't remember reading about one called Glorificus."
"We have no idea if that's actually her name." Diana replied. "But that's not the point, she's not a god from any of the pantheons we're familiar with, Glorificus comes from a Hell dimension."
"A Hell god?! Fire and brimstone, torture and death to all humans?" Jesse stared at her. "That kind of Hell god?"
"Yes." Diana confirmed. "I doubt Brother Luca is still alive, if he is, than she's likely been torturing him since she captured him. How long he could hold out - and when she's done torturing him, she could feed on his mind. If he was still alive, the condition he'd be in -." Diana shuddered, horrified just by the possibilities.
"She's had him a day, a day and half." It was Mason's turn to pace. "If he is the Key, then she likely already knows that and has either used him to get back to where she wants to go -."
"No, she hasn't." Diana told him. "It needs someone to control it, it's a finite resource. It's poured into a specific location and breaks down the barriers between dimensions. She could use that access point to get from here to there, but the energy will continue to pour in until it's run out, at which point the opening closes. It has to, if it remains open the dimensions will bleed together. But that also happens while it's open and we'd have demons unleashed on Earth. We'd know if that had happened, the chances of keeping it quiet are pretty much impossible. After all her arrival here created chaos and destruction, not enough to destroy our world, but enough to be noticed."
"Question," Mason held up a finger. "how long has she been here? When did this arrival take place? Did he record any specifics of the chaos and destruction so we could look at history and say that's when she gotp here? How long has she been leaving a trail of insane people?"
"None of that is in the book." Diana answered. "And I agree, all of it is important information. But if Tarnis was a Seer of some sort, no Seer sees or perceives more than glimpses. And the book doesn't explain how or when the monks became the caretakers of the Key. But Tarnis founded the Order of Dagon in the twelfth century, gods are immortal, she could have been around since then. But if so, she's been quiet because she apparently hasn't gone around demanding worship."
"And it took her over eight hundred years to find the Key?" Faith asked sceptically. "If she was able to track the monks as fast as she seems to have, how could it take her that long to track down the Key? Something's really aren't adding up here."