Author notes: With this chapter, I am posing some elements of background explaining some differences between this story and the OMG canon. Please remember that even the OMG universe is an AU because it exists in a multiverse created by the Chousin and with the Cthulhu-like ancient demons of the Buffyverse.
- Planet Dis, 7 million years ago -
Marlene tried to blink as the scenery changed around her. It wasn't the familiar living room of their house anymore but a brightly lit room with people scurrying around. Inscriptions in strange, tormented characters were etched on some walls in a way… yes, she knew what it was. She was a Navy brat and she had spent enough time in military bases during her childhood to recognize that vibe. The uniforms most people were wearing should have tipped her off even before, but she had probably been thrown off by the fact they looked more like something out of a Final Fantasy game than the dress blues she was used to. That and the fact all the people around had a tail and horns.
Right in front of her were a man and a woman. The woman, stunningly beautiful with dark brown skin and white hair, had a knee on the ground and was motioning for her to come near. She felt her body moving and noticed a teenage girl on her right, maybe fifteen years old, clad in a black and pink catsuit and who shared the woman's features. The woman was crying openly while the man standing next to her was trying to be stoic.
"Hild, you will have to be strong," said the woman hugging her and the teenage girl fiercely. "Take care of your brother and… remember us."
"I will, Mom."
"Belial… I wish we could have more time. I wish…"
Marlene felt tears run down her cheeks. She tried to turn her head but couldn't.
Why… of course! Vulcan mind meld! Max is showing me what Belial saw. I bet that if I could find a mirror, I would see a little boy.
"Mom… I…" said a little boy's voice coming from her own body, confirming her theory.
"Don't even think about it, son," said the man. "Go with your sister and live."
The boy nodded slowly, wiping his tears.
"Commander, it is time," said another soldier behind Marlene.
Reluctantly, the woman let them go and Marlene wondered if her physical body was crying too. She focused her attention on the scenery as the two children walked quickly through the halls. Many of the people she could see were wounded and busy going over equipment that looked like weapons with haste.
The place… yes, it reminded her of that visit she had done of Cheyenne Mountain with her dad. There was a big difference though. It looked… run down, barely holding together through the grace of jury-rigged equipment. Just like the soldiers… no, that wasn't it. The soldiers were tired but when they looked at the children that passed their way, fatigue became grim determination. She wanted to scream as the pieces clicked together in her mind. These people, these parents: they were about to sacrifice themselves so that the kids could live.
Other kids, all wearing the same kind of catsuits and backpacks came from other halls and joined them in their walk. She noticed that the catsuit even covered the tail and there was that structure she could see around the neck… she focused on Belial's sensations, feeling how his own suit moved. It was comfortable but it seemed thicker than spandex, keeping a light pressure on the skin. When a thick chemical smell assaulted Belial's nose, she knew that they weren't leaving by truck or even by plane.
She studied the technology around them while Belial and his sister were seated, five-points harnesses locked, and helmets secured on their heads. If she had any doubt left, the way their seats rotated, making them look upwards, would have removed it. She felt Hild's hand on her, or rather Belial's, offering what little comfort the girl could.
"Sis…"
"I know, Belial. It sucks… put your helmet display on the external cameras. We have to remember."
Belial nodded weakly, looking at the face of his sister. Marlene wanted to weep. Hild didn't look like a teenager should but like a hardened veteran. Belial typed some command line on his left bracer's keyboard and a window opened in front of his face. It showed what Marlene guessed to be boosters strapped on a space shuttle. Like the base, the spacecraft looked old… no that wasn't it. The shuttle was state-of-the-art technology, but someone had strapped boosters on it in a rather improvised way.
Could it be a suborbital jet they jury-rigged? No, the pivoting chairs go against it. This vehicle is designed to take off vertically. Speed. They want to go 'up there' faster than usual and maybe also higher. But why? I can understand not evacuating everybody if the destination is in space. They probably don't have enough shuttles. But then, why space?
Doing his best to keep himself from shaking, the kid added another camera feed to his display. This one was probably coming from one of the base's external cameras. Troops were fighting, firing at will against… Marlene had spent enough time playing a certain RPG to know she had barely made her sanity check. She thanked God it was only an image on the screen, that she wasn't seeing those things for real. She would probably be mumbling something about R'lyeh if she had.
The Great Old Ones… they're fighting fuckin' Cthulhu!
To be fair, the abominations didn't exactly look like Lovecraft's creatures but there were more than enough tentacles around to put them in the same category. The Shedim seemed to be pouring all they had to keep a flat area abomination-free and when fake rocks started to slide, revealing a large, circular pit, she knew why.
Her musings were cut short as acceleration crushed Belial in his seat. On the base's camera feed, she saw some of the soldiers look upwards, their eyes probably following the trail of exhaust. The camera shook and the feed was lost. Marlene looked at the other camera feed, the one looking backwards on the shuttle's hull, dreading what she would see.
It was even worse than she had expected. She had seen the soldiers and seen that the base was surrounded, their last reserves engaged in a delaying action to allow the shuttle to take flight. The Shedim had planned to take as many of the creatures with them as they could. She had thought of nukes, but the Shedim seemed to have far worse in their arsenal. The mountain the base had been dug into was vaporized in an instant as black cracks expanded in all directions. It was as if the planet's crust was shattering, letting the mantle reach the open air in an area counted in hundreds of square miles.
She had no idea how they could do this, but she knew that the consequences for the planet's ecosystem would be terrible. She winced as the planet became smaller on the camera feed, the shuttle having now discarded its boosters and fired its second stage to jump into high orbit. There were other patches of glowing red on the planetary surface, probably other bases that had fired the same kind of doomsday weapon. She briefly thought that it gave a whole new meaning to the scorched earth tactic, but she could only feel ashamed about it. She was witnessing a mass extinction event.
Images flashed, like a video on fast forward. From the little she could see; she guessed that Belial was sitting in classes and training on equipment. The flow of images briefly slowed, and she saw Hild's face, wishing Belial good night as she closed the plastic lid of a pod. Again, she focused on the scenery, gathering clues. With the way the hallway with the many pods probably holding sleeping people curved… she knew what that place was. It was the gravity ring of a sleeper ship, one that was about to make a very long journey.
There was another fast forward and Belial was now waking up in the pod, removing the sensors and IV from his body. He did a few warm-up exercises, as he had probably been trained for while preparing for the trip.
"Where is my sister?" he asked, noticing an empty pod.
"Lady Hild is on the bridge," replied one of the crewmen. "Follow me."
Lady Hild? She's just a kid… something went wrong during the trip.
Marlene's theory was confirmed as she noticed the armor plates hastily welded on a wall and the cables coming out of an access panel, crossing the room, and entering another panel. The repairs didn't look recent though and Marlene filed that info with the rest, wondering what caused the damage. She also noticed that most of the crewmen looked young, younger than the ones she remembered seeing in the shuttle or in the flash images before Belial fell asleep.
"What happened?" asked Belial, who had noticed the same things she did.
"There was…"
The young man was hesitating, probably wondering what he could tell a kid like Belial. From what Marlene had managed to guess, her 'host' was maybe six or seven.
"Okay… I suppose I can tell you. If there is only half the steel in your spine that she has… One of the original officers was a worshipper of Glorificus. The original crew is dead and many of the adults' pods were sabotaged before he was killed. After that… the computer woke up a few of us to take over, based on our training scores."
Marlene felt Belial nod somberly. She had no access to the related memory, but the boy obviously knew that this name was bad news. They soon arrived on the bridge, and she was not surprised to see a familiar tanned woman with white hair sitting in the command chair. As she had guessed too, Hild looked older, well over twenty. She had… nicely filled out did not even start to cover it.
"Sis?" asked Belial, obviously confused. "You look like Mom."
"I probably do… come near me, Bel."
"When did they wake you up?"
Now that I think about it, thought Marlene, why are they speaking English? Max must be doing the translation.
"Ten years ago. I'll tell you all that happened later. For now…"
Hild was pointing to the screen that took the front part of the bridge. A planet of mostly blue seas and white clouds filled most of it. The shape of the green and brown continents was all too familiar to Marlene, though with some differences. If she was indeed seeing Africa, there was not enough sandy yellow in the north part.
"Real seas… I mean clean ones," said Belial in awe. "Are there fishes?"
"We sent several probes down. Tiamat, do you have something?"
"Yes, I have something interesting," replied a young Shedu woman with aquamarine hair.
A window opened on the giant screen and Marlene had little difficulty recognizing the shapes surfacing. She wasn't sure about the species, but it was a group of whales.
"According to thermal imagery they are warm-blooded," continued Tiamat. "We will have so many things to study… uh oh!"
Tiamat typed a few commands and one of the probe's cameras shifted, showing red in the sea. One of the whales that had been away from the group was attacked and Marlene easily recognized the triangular dorsal fin that surfaced for an instant.
"This predator is cold-blooded," said Tiamat as another window on the screen revealed a shark.
"How big is it?" asked Belial.
"Fifteen meters. Fascinating creature."
Fifteen… understood: Megalodon. Add this to a mostly green Sahara area. Like Buffy said: ancient astronauts.
"I don't think I will go for a swim," said the boy.
"It's a virgin world that has never known intelligent life, little brother. But it's also our home now and I swear we will protect it better than our birth planet."
- Dillon Home, Sunnydale, Saturday 5 November 2011, 10:14 -
Buffy was looking at the Dillons. Max was concentrating, his demon marks glowing dark red as he fed knowledge to his entranced wife. On the nearby couch, Aphrodisia was fidgeting, observing the couple with visible worry while Amy held her hand.
She could guess why. She had observed the evolution of many people since Halloween, including her own. It was like she had been walking back and forth on a twisted path going from the old Buffy to Mara, introspection and various external forces making her go one direction or the other. This was what had just happened to Aphrodisia. Her Mom's return had urged her to move back a little toward her old human self.
And Belial… he does not act like the old pervert Mara knows. He genuinely cares for Marlene, and this has to come from his human side…
She knew that, sooner or later, people would just decide that a given spot on the path looked nice and settle down, finalizing the process Halloween had started. For some it would be near their former selves, with just enough of the other to help them cope with stuff like immortality or magic. From what she had seen, Xander was headed that way. Others like Willow had allowed themselves to be swayed more toward the other end of the path. There were even a few who seemed to have decided that life was too hard and just gave up, giving free reign to the other.
And what of her? What of the girl called Buffy Summers? She had some experience of having her world turned upside down. Before she had been called as the Slayer, all she cared about were things like 'who should I date?', 'how will this affect my popularity at school?' or 'these shoes would look good with that dress.' Then, with the Slayer, nagging things like 'don't die' or 'how will I manage to do this without sacrificing too many people?' barged in. Sure, she had tried to have some semblance of normal life after her rather loud début as a Slayer. But then, fate had screwed her over once again when she and her mom moved to Sunnydale.
Halloween was just the latest of those twists but this time, there had been something different. Until then, it had seemed that all the Slayer had done was to ask her to sacrifice more and more. Even the friends she made… sure they supported her, which was nice, but she felt herself dying every time they went into danger because she dragged them into this dark, hopeless world the Slayer lived in. Halloween now… sure she had panicked at first, wept at her lost humanity, at the price it exacted from her mom, her sister, and her friends. But then, she had realized something. Halloween had – in her opinion – given them much more than they had lost.
It wasn't simply a matter of being near immortal and having phenomenal cosmic power. Halloween had given to each of them something they craved. She wasn't sure of how deep it ran for the others, but she knew what it was for her. It was like what Amy had told her about feeling safer now that her dad was not powerless against her witchcraft. Thanks to Halloween, she had found back something the Slayer had taken away from her: she could confide to her mom about her problems again. Her family was not made of people she could feel herself drifting away from anymore.
There was even more, something more global. She remembered how pointless patrolling sometimes felt to her. There were always new vampires, always a new demon. Despite all her victories, nothing had changed. All she had achieved in her two years of Slaying was to preserve the status quo. She wasn't completely unhappy about it of course. Status quo meant she was alive and that the Hellmouth stayed closed and yet… sometimes she wondered if she was actually making a difference. Her opinion now, looking at her career through Mara's memories, was that her battles were just skirmishes in a world war. They were good for a story or two about individual heroism, the kind media spun to give people the illusion that something was being done. The ugly truth was that the war just continued, oblivious to her victories.
This is probably what Mom understood, what made her sign that pact with Hild. Halloween triggered a whole new game with new rules. It's time to win this war.
It had already started. It had taken a mere day for a task force of Shedim and Elohim to clean up most of the town. Cemeteries were safe. They were now hallowed by the combined efforts of people like Anubis and Mictlantecuhtli and anything buried there was guaranteed to stay dead. The few demon clans living underground had recognized Satan as their liege. Sure, others would come. There were people who had an interest in keeping things as they were. The more she thought about it the more she believed that at least some Watchers didn't want to win the war. Winning the war would make them obsolete.
If… and I really hope I am not, my hunch about the Watchers is correct, then so be it. I will do what's needed to make people safe. If they stand in the way, I will remove them.
"How is your mom doing?" she asked, having noticed that Aphrodisia had moved behind the armchair Marlene was sitting in and was casting diagnostic spells.
"A little fatigue, like concentrating hard when you go through a difficult test."
"What is he showing her?"
Aphrodisia cast another spell and a brief list in Enochian script appeared in front of her.
"The Exodus from Dis, some scenes from Belial's youth as they were setting up the colony and some of our early dealings with the Elohim colony Ymir founded. In other words, enough to get a good first impression of our two peoples."
Max removed his fingers from his wife's face and Marlene left her trance. From Buffy's point of view, she looked exhausted. Aphrodisia started to massage her neck, weaving a few light healing spells in her slow gestures.
"Speak about an info dump," said Marlene. "Thank you, honey, that feels really good. Max… I am starting to understand the Shedim and the Elohim better, but I need some clarification."
"Sure."
"First, what about the horns? As in why you don't have them anymore?"
"Many Shedim, Belial included, modified their base shape to be able to mingle with humans without having to cast illusions or shapechanging spells."
"Makes sense… there is a manga about Belial's world, right?"
"I think I will answer this one as one of my friends owns it and I asked her the same question recently," replied Buffy. "Neither the manga nor the anime exactly describes what I remember. Among other things, the Elohim and Shedim have different origins. I'm actually quite glad about it because… as you have seen we are similar to humans. The ones in the manga aren't. To quote Willow: 'they are twelve dimensional beings whose human appearance is just a three-dimensional projection of their true self.' In short, had they been that… most of us would be dead, raving mad or taken over because there is no way a human mind can handle that kind of change."
"How can… inflationist multiverse?"
"Yes. The manga describes something that happened somewhere, just not in the reality the Mara in my head is coming from. I say thankfully because otherwise I would be compelled to dance every time I hear rock music."
Though the lucky charms allergy is right… not that I will advertise that to anyone, thought Buffy.
"Next question. If the Elohim and Shedim come from the same planet, why didn't they mingle more?"
"The Shedim and Elohim are not just two different races but related species, like the lion and the tiger," replied Aphrodisia. "Hybrids were at best sterile, and stillborn most of the time. Also, we have neurological differences that generate different instincts. Overall, mingling on a large scale has never been easy."
"Even now?"
"We don't know," said Belial. "From our history, we know it can work, for a time."
"Right, next question: Max, what I saw from the exodus and the colony was technology and not even very advanced, apart from the 'tectonic bombs.' What about magic?"
"It was there but… at this point in Shedim history, for most people magic was limited to a few innate spells that are little more than parlor tricks. With a lot of effort – think the years of hard training needed to become a martial arts master – you could do more. For most people, however, technology was easier, more reliable, and more powerful."
"Why? The spells in the Grimoire worked well."
"I can help here," said Amy. "I was already a witch before Halloween, and I know how… let's call it human magic works. First, spells tend to be transmitted from more ancient races, which brings us to the whole 'standing on the shoulders of giants' thing. Second, many powerful spells are prayers, asking a powerful entity to do the magic for you in exchange for a sacrifice. Before Glorificus, the Shedim and Elohim were living on a planet mostly free of meddling by beings from other dimensions, so they had neither. Even when our respective civilizations reached the information era… Shedim side, funding for a domain needing a lot of fundamental research was hard to come by, while on our side, governmental officials equated 'research in magic' with 'convenient excuse to produce nothing and embezzle the budget.' Familiars were the only thing that took off well thanks to the cute factor but then… well you saw what the environment was like when we left the planet."
Marlene had a sigh. Academics all around the world knew those kinds of stories about funding all too well.
"You said 'our side' when talking about Elohim. Then why the red marks?"
"The marks have nothing to do with my biology… they're… Mr. Dillon?"
"I think I have a memory… Aphrodisia, I think it will be better if you handle it."
"No problem, Dad, just bring it to the forefront and lower your secondary shield. I will make it so that we can all see it and do a bit of dubbing and editing, among other things to replace the original faces with the ones of the people who inherited their memories in Sunnydale."
Aphrodisia's demon marks flared an ominous red as the living room around them started to warp, dissolving in crimson mist.
- Los Angeles, Saturday 5 November 2011, 10:31 -
Trick was running, clinging to the shadows. He had a little smile as he saw the backdoor of the bar. It was early but he had always been friendly with the proprietor. While many vampires were brutes incapable of seeing further than their next meal, he was better. He knew how the world worked and loved modern technology. He also knew the value of having neutral ground to discuss business in a friendly atmosphere.
"So, this was your goal," said a voice from above.
He looked up. Of course, he was perched on a ledge, crouching in a way that made him look like a fuckin' bird of prey!
"So… this's the part where you tell me that you can lay me out and fill my mouth with my mother's feces?" he asked, remembering one of Lucifer's quotes in THAT movie. "Listen, if you're really him…"
"I see that you will do whatever you need to prolong your existence, Trick."
"I can be useful. I can tell you're new and I have a lot of contacts. How do you think Kakistos could operate while he has no idea about the modern world? That's thanks to me!"
"Yet you abandoned him."
"I'm a realist. The moment I understood we crashed some kind of Heavenly Cold War meeting… staying would just have been stupid!"
"True… you may indeed be of some use to me."
Trick looked at the Devil in the face, and he instantly knew that he was screwed. Lucifer was looking at him as if he was a thing. He felt the shadows move around him, snaring him and dragging him inside the wall, one of the dark tendrils gagging him so that he couldn't scream. Trick soon disappeared while Lukas teleported him to Sunnydale.
Bifrons is still in need of test subjects for her Red Dust after all…
He could feel the gaze of a person from a window above. He aimed his senses in that direction, looking for souls. He smiled, liking what he had found. Gabe would probably have objected to the security risk, but their presence would soon be known. Also, he was intrigued by the complex wards on the club, aimed at preventing violence from supernatural people.
Caritas… maybe a little karaoke outing with some colleagues soon.
He turned his head and winked at the green-skinned, horned demon behind the window as he dissolved into a flock of shadowy ravens.
- Belial's memories, 7 million years ago -
This time, it was different. Marlene didn't feel as if she was feeling what Belial felt. She could move on her own, look around and see her own body. She could even touch the seat on which she was sitting. She was in some kind of auditorium and Hild was standing in the central area, while on the giant screen near her were the words: 'Styx – a return to the fundamentals.' Apart from herself, though, the whole scenery seemed frozen.
She smiled. She had so many questions! How could Aphrodisia induce…
"Lucid dreaming," replied her daughter's voice as she appeared, leaning against a wall. "Byleth is the Demoness of Nightmares, and this kind of magic is her specialty."
"So, as far as the external world is concerned, we're all sleeping in the living room?"
"You are, while I am meditating to coordinate everything. I'm just here to give some background information. You have probably seen that after the Landing, Hild had her partisans, but not enough to unite the whole newly awakened Shedim behind her, so one of the adult politicians took charge."
"Yes, and Hild herself focused on technical operations, founding her own company with the help of her crew. This is a conference by the CEO on a new product?"
"Yes. The people in the room are press or representatives of potential investors. One last point: while not yet immortal, Shedim already had a lifespan of over a millennium in those days. This happened nearly two centuries after the Landing. Enjoy the show and see you in a while, Mom!"
The scene resumed as Aphrodisia disappeared, her smile leaving the room last.
"Contracts are a cornerstone of our civilization. Nobody can deny that fact. When our ancestors were struggling against a harsh environment with only stone tools and weapons, a simple given word was often enough to prevent war between two tribes. Later, it was the oath pronounced by the twenty-one clan leaders at the source of the river Styx that laid the foundations of the First Kingdom.
"But one may ask what is left of those values today. One may wonder who would trust the given word of a Shedu without a complex written contract to back it up in this modern age. The sad thing is that people would be faster to sneer at the honorable Shedu for being so naïve than to vilify the oath-breaker. Even with a written contract, how often has money won over honor? This was the poison that prevented us from seeing Glorificus's threat before it was too late. This is the poison seeping once again through our society.
"I say no more. I say that there is a way to put an end to all this. The Styx network will act as an impartial guardian of our oaths, recording them straight from our brains, forcing the honorless to keep their word and giving everyone the assurance that promises will not be broken.
"How will it work? Central servers held by our company, maintained by technicians who are themselves part of the network and sworn not to touch any record unless strict conditions are met. At the other end, an aetheric implant on each user," she said, tapping the red star on her brow while the screen displayed her own face. "Why the visible mark? It is an easy way to tell others that I take my oaths seriously…"
The presentation continued for a while, detailing the cost analysis of setting up the network and the fees Hild's company would ask from users. Marlene zoned out a little, lacking the background information on the Shedim economy to understand it fully. She was just waiting for the questions to start, wondering what subtleties they would uncover.
"What if the marks are faked?" asked someone.
"Each mark is equipped with a transponder allowing anyone on the network to know if he is facing a genuine mark. There will also be a mental procedure allowing someone to contact the servers for a match in case someone tries to fake the transponder signals. Next?"
"I heard that the Elohim are developing a similar system, is that true?"
"Yes. They call it Ma'at, but its goals are different even when the problem it is addressing – distrust and corruption – is similar to ours. What the Elohim are putting together will compel its users to say the truth. For those of you who wonder if someone copied the other's technology, the answer is 'in part.' My company exchanged some information with the Elohim Ministry of Science as we both realized the urgency of developing the technology. But, apart from the basic principles, all the development was done independently, as the system needed to be tailored to the needs of our species…"
The conference dissolved in crimson mist and was soon replaced by another place. Max was sitting in front of Lukas on a terrace, and she got a confirmation to one of her questions about Lucifer and the myth of his fall. Lukas had blue marks and a halo above his head.
But I wonder what made him switch sides…
"So," said Lukas. "Why did you request this meeting? After the frictions during our work with the networks, I thought that your… company had renounced collaboration with us."
"Things have changed, Samael. First, while this is not completely official yet, my sister is the new Satan."
"Interesting… did Eligor the Elder retire?"
"He admitted he was out of his depth when Hild presented him with the upgrade we are planning on Styx."
"And as, through Styx, Hild is actually controlling the Shedim…"
"Controlling is such a nasty word, Samael. Anyway, the reason I am here is that we have a gift for the Ministry of Science."
"I always thought that a Shedim gift was an oxymoron, Belial. If you are here to give me something for free, it is because the mere fact it is available to me will force me to act in the way you have planned. So, what is it this time?"
"I think these few excerpts of the project will make things clear."
He handed the other man something looking like a computer tablet. Marlene moved around to look over Samael's shoulder. She sighed as she saw that the screen was full of unknown characters.
"Aphrodisia?" she called.
"Yes, Mom?" replied the teen, suddenly sitting on a nearby wall as the dream froze around them.
"Can you make it so that I understand what he is reading?"
"Hmm… Mom, translating common Enochian into English is easy for both Dad and I because we know both languages. This kind of high-level math… I have no idea what the Terran notation should be."
"Maybe you can teach me yours… isn't Enochian supposed to be the language of angels by the way?"
"Enochian was the diplomatic and scientific language used by both of our species in the Old World. After the Exodus, everybody started to use it as their main language. I can teach it to you as well as all the math notifications we use, but you have to understand two things. First, it will be irreversible. Second… for that I will have to open an account for you on Nidhogg."
"What's Nidhogg?"
"The server farm of the Styx network, or rather what the Styx network has become. It will just be a category three account. You won't have any visible mark or be subject to the oath enforcing but…"
"But I will be entering a pact with the devil, right? That's why you have this category three?"
"Among other things. It's not a problem, though. It's a minor boon, so I can use the 'free sample' procedure."
Marlene looked at her daughter, noticing the curious mixture of hope and embarrassment on Aphrodisia's face. She could guess why. The way she had said 'free sample' echoed with what Samael had said of Belial's gift. It sounded like a drug pusher saying that the first dose was free.
But there was more, a lot more. For her daughter and husband, what happened during Halloween was a one-way ticket. The more she learnt, the less she thought that 'cutting one's wings' was a realistic option. Aphrodisia didn't want to lose her mom, so that left only one logical option. She had to be tempted into joining the Dark Side.
Byleth, the ancient Shedu, would probably have toyed with her like a cat with a mouse until she was on her knees, begging her infernal mistress to grant this unworthy slave her blessing. Thankfully, despite the cat ears on Aphrodisia's head and the magical power, Marlene was dealing with her daughter. A daughter who was freaked out at the idea she could run away from Sunnydale and never want to see her again. A daughter who loved her mom and wanted things to be as all right as they could.
"Aphrodisia… I think we both know where this is headed. I know that there is that part of me that is telling me to flee as fast as I can, but I won't listen to it. I won't because if I did, I would be losing you, your dad and most of my friends. So, I will take that free sample and I will let you and the others have a try at convincing me to buy more."
Her daughter rushed into her arms, hugging her fiercely.
"Thank you, Mom! You won't regret it!"
Aphrodisia made a gesture, making a black laptop with a glowing red coiled snake sigil on the back of its screen appear. She started to work on it.
"Here it is, Mom," she said, turning the laptop toward her.
Marlene had a look. What was on the screen looked a little like a standard registration form for an internet site. Some of the usual fields like the address did not exist and there was something that looked like a mix of an astrological chart and an absorption spectrum graph.
"The funny diagram is your soul signature. To keep it very simple, the soul is a form of modulated energy."
"Each signature is unique?"
"Yes. It can even be traced through reincarnation."
Marlene filled in the few missing pieces of information and checked the 'yes' box after going through surprisingly short terms and conditions. A silhouette of a hand appeared on the screen, with a message asking her to touch the screen to activate. She took a deep breath, knowing it was the point of no return, and pressed her hand on the screen. She winced as she felt a burn on her palm. Looking at her hand, she saw that a red mark, not unlike the one on her daughter's brow, was fading in it.
Like in the Book of Revelations… the Beast marking people on their hand or on their brow, none being able to buy or sell without it…
Aphrodisia was back at work on the laptop and suddenly, the symbols she could see around her started to make sense. She understood now why the operation was irreversible. She wasn't translating what she was reading in her head. She was thinking in Enochian, her mind basking in the music of that new language.
"There, all finished," said Aphrodisia. "Mom, are you alright?"
Marlene took a good five seconds to realize her daughter had talked to her in Enochian.
"I know Kung Fu," she replied with a smile, remembering a similar scene in a popular movie.
"Show me," replied Aphrodisia, who had caught the quote.
Marlene moved behind Samael's shoulder and started to read on the pad. Following a hunch about the nature of the virtual reality she was in; she took it delicately and started to go through the data. It was part something that looked like theoretical physics and part engineering, describing a machine using those principles. It was far too advanced for her unless… she shook off the thought. Learning a new language by having it directly uploaded into her brain was one thing. A good part of it was memorizing things like vocabulary and she would assimilate the skill quickly enough as she could speak in Enochian with the people in Sunnydale. Scientific knowledge far more advanced than anything humanity had discovered so far was a whole other matter. If her brain didn't burn Stargate O'Neill style from the info dump, this seemed to her like a good way of ending up unable to be critical about the 'divine revelation.' She concentrated, mustering every bit of her own knowledge to at least get some general sense of the content.
"Aphrodisia, this description makes me think about quantum vacuum. Am I correct?"
"Yes. The big discovery in this tablet is that it is possible to extract energy from the zero-point state of an aetheric – that's our science-y word for magical – system. However, the process has a problem. If you extract black magic, you have an equivalent quantity of white magic created as waste. Shedim cannot do anything with it and if left in the environment, it's a pollutant."
"So, you leaked the technology to the Elohim so that they built a reactor extracting white magic and both sides can then use the waste of the other, right?"
"Yes. The reactors are using respectively the Ma'at and Styx networks to share that power amongst us… that link is the reason the myth says that Nidhogg is nibbling on Yggdrasil's root. Over time, it changed us. Our bodies acclimated to higher levels of magic, and we became near immortal. This led us to introduce other changes, like adding cloud computing to the system. Using the network, we can call on software that allow us to shape our magic very quickly."
Marlene remembered the Grimoire. Most spells took a long time to cast, a far call from the one standard action spells of her Dungeons and Dragons games. The Shedim had solved that problem by having supercomputers handle the rituals. Yet, she had the impression that she was missing something.
"Aphrodisia… Am I right in saying that the total amount of energy in the network never ceased to grow?"
"You are right. At some point… aetheric energy and mass have a similar behavior. Put enough mass in one place and you warp space. Add even more and you end up with a black hole. With aetheric energy, the more energy in a place, the easier it is to use magic. Ordinary lifeforms mutate into magical equivalents, like dogs becoming Cerberuses. Add even more and… aetheric singularity. Magic gives reality a wedgie. In some cases, it gives birth to a pocket universe, removing the place with the high magic from the universe. In ours though… the order represented by the linked networks became more important than natural order and replaced it. Yggdrasil and Nidhogg started to have a lot of funky settings like 'please set the value of the speed of light here.' As we were a part of the network through our marks…"
"You became gods."
Aphrodisia nodded.
"You built one here, right?"
"Yes. They are still far from reaching that point, but they will do it eventually. Given that, this time, we know what will happen and the exact conditions of the event… we're going faster."
"How long?"
"Years… there are too many external factors to give a precise number. Mom, the Ditchiks just arrived. I have already woken up the others."
"All right. Log me out."
- Dillon Home, Saturday 5 November 2011, 10:57 -
"I'll get the door," Buffy told Amy as she heard the doorbell.
Max, Marlene and Aphrodisia were still busy with the dream of ancient memories, but she had exited quite quickly, preferring to be back in the real world to think about something she had seen. She now realized one thing. Registration with Nidhogg happened at birth nowadays so she had forgotten a parameter. Like many Shedim, she did not recognize the difference between what was a result of her biology and the restrictions imposed on her by Nidhogg.
To be clear, I was an idiot. Dawnie could have told me how it is for her.
She opened the door and her eyes fell on a person reminding her of Viggo Mortensen… but that feeling was almost immediately washed out by the feeling of the man's aura. Images assaulted her mind, coming straight from Mara's memories. At the top of it was a burnt down village, corpses impaled on pikes all around and she trying to tear them down, using what little magic she had to dig graves and bury… her family.
She felt arms holding her, triggering another memory. She remembered being held just like that, his soft voice telling her it was all right to cry, that she would not dishonor her parents by doing so.
"It's all right, my little firefly," said Lukas.
"Sorry to… but the memory when I saw you… it was so intense," she replied, breaking the hug, her face red with embarrassment.
Lucifer knew which one of course. It had been in the first days of the war, when an Eloah commander had the idea to target one of the few neutral settlements with the intent of planting proof to accuse the other side. He and his fellow defectors had managed to destroy the Elohim force, but too late to save little Mara's village. She had only survived by hiding under her parents' cooling corpses, making sure to have her own aura match their fading ones.
"I may not have raised you in this life, Mara, but I will be here if you need to talk," replied Lukas.
"Hello Mara," said another voice from behind as a red-haired woman came bearing bags. "It's nice to see you again."
Another memory flashed through and this time Buffy thought that the dreamwalking Aphrodisia did had probably lowered some of her defenses. Lilith… one of the prototype humans but removed from the main project because… the details eluded her. What she was sure of was that Lilith had been the first human to ascend at the beginning of the war and stayed the only one for a long time. Yes, Mara was living at Satan's palace with them… well when she wasn't playing with Urd.
"I think you know Gwen and Amanda," said Lilith, waving at two horned Shedim girls. "Their alter egos are from Daemonea and… Cathy?"
"I'm here, Mom," said a maybe eight-year-old girl, rising from a patch of shadow. "Hello!"
"Lucifer, I wanted… can we talk about Giles?" she asked as the Ditchiks entered the house.
Buffy could not help but notice how tense Amanda had become when hearing that name.
"Come with me," he said. "Amanda, you can come too."
"Thanks, Dad," replied the teenage demoness.
He led the two of them into the backyard.
"So, I suppose you understood some things. I also suppose that if you are here this morning it is because you asked Aphrodisia's opinion on it. Byleth is experienced with politics, and she had the advantage of being in your age group. You could contact her without triggering anything official."
"Buffy, I can see your hesitation," said Amanda. "I am aware that Mr. Giles is a Watcher. Dad explained the problem to me because… It's hurting to see him like that."
"Because Malphas, the Shedu in Giles's head, is the grandfather of Vine who is in yours, right?"
"Yes."
"Okay… so, thanks to Belial explaining things to Marlene, I was reminded that pre-registration oaths are not recorded retroactively. Can't you just check the logs to see if Giles confirmed this one?"
"Your mother could but Giles would know about it," replied Lukas. "We are in a delicate situation…"
"Dad, maybe I can explain…" cut in Amanda. "Well, one thing we Daemonea Shedim fully realize is that we are a lot less advanced than you," she continued following her father's nod. "Because we come from a place with high magical density, we're not as helpless as your ancestors before they set up Nidhogg but we're still backwards. Another problem is that natural born devils like me are rare. Most of us are actually nature spirits who went through a ritual to become devils."
Buffy nodded, remembering that Dawn had mentioned this last point and not thought much about it, having already too much on her plate. Given the morning's discussions about the Native Bond Act, she now realized how important it was. By nature, the Deamonea Shedim were much more fragmented than the Niflheim ones.
"There was nobody to unite the Deamonea Shedim?"
"Two people could have," said Lucifer. "Giles, because he is Malphas, the president of Deamonea's Devil Council. However, he was prudent like Montgomery while the situation required Patton's bravado and he missed the occasion. The second one is Dawn, because she is Pam Akumachi, bearer of the Tupsimati."
"That's why the Native Bond Act was passed so fast, while Dawn was still busy dealing with her change," replied Buffy. "She calls the Deamonea Shedim, and they all join the Baphomet Compact because she's Satan's daughter."
"Correct. We Princes could not have that," replied Lucifer with a smile. "Though, of course, I had to make sure that my children stayed such, even with the current complication."
"Yeah… I may be Baphomet now, but Mara is a Grigori too. I know how your compact is about keeping balance."
"For now, we Deamonea Shedim are fine with the situation," said Amanda. "It sucks a bit, but we can work to catch up and integrate. Mr. Giles is a Tribune and that means we're heard. We have good hope that Satan will give him a more permanent area of expertise once things are more stable. But if Mr. Giles were to betray Sunnydale… it wouldn't be good for us. Well… that was for the cold facts part. Personally… it hurts me to see that Mr. Giles is refusing to accept grandfather. He could bring him so much… I mean I sense so much hurt in Mr. Giles's soul that grandfather could help him heal."
"I would just add to this that we must tread cautiously," said Lukas. "As Amanda said, the situation is complex and we in the Dark Cabinet cannot act openly."
"I see… then it will be up to me and my friends to act unofficially before it blows in our face. Amanda?"
"You can count on me."
- Dillon Home, Saturday 5 November 2011, 12:17 -
Buffy felt… disturbingly normal, as if what she was living right now was a call back to the life she had before the Slayer. From a certain point of view, the scene was almost a Hollywood cliché. A warm, sunny weekend, a large table set under the pergola by the pool, the three husbands manning the barbeque while the wives were bringing plates from the kitchen and putting them on the table. Kids were playing in the pool, in this case Harmony's little brother Daniel playing with Cathy Ditchik. She was herself in a swimsuit, sitting on the border of the pool with her legs resting in the water and chatting amiably with Amy, Aphrodisia and Gwen.
Of course, there were a few oddities, starting with the blue or red marks everyone but Marlene had on their brow. There were also the horns on Gwen and Amanda Ditchik's heads, as well as the halo over Liberty Kendall's head. Then came the big offenders, like the fact Amy was levitating above the water, her position not unlike if she had been sitting on a deck chair. The fact Max was defending the superior qualities of hellfire over normal flame for a barbeque or that they were all speaking Enochian, with Marlene having asked them to correct her at the first sign of doing a 'Ziva David' with her freshly uploaded language package. There was also the child-sized mermaid-shaped puddle of water playing with Cathy and Daniel under Amanda's benevolent gaze. The creature was an undine, a water elemental contracted as Amanda's familiar.
But, in the end, those were details. What was important was that while some of the means were magical, the way they were used was ordinary. It was just three families and a few friends having a nice dinner. As for tonight, while she had to keep her phone on in case the Abaddon required her expertise, no patrol. Just a nice evening checking if that Indian movie they had watched a while ago was even funnier now that they all understood Telugu, plus a few backup plans in case it wasn't.
Well… except for one party pooper.
She got up and went to fetch a Coke from the cooler. She smiled as she remembered the warning Michelle had given to Daniel, telling him to stick to juice. It wasn't the matter of caffeine risking getting him hyper, but the fact that for Elohim, caffeine plus sugar had effects similar to the ones of hard liquor on humans. As she opened her can, she innocently looked at the party pooper.
Harmony was sitting apart from them. In fact, she was seated in a way that allowed her to keep an eye on all of them. The big problem was that Harmony was not exactly herself these days and that Lind was completely freaked out by the situation. So, she had defaulted to a behavior she knew. She acted as if she was on a security assignment at a diplomatic function between VIPs of both sides. She acted cold and professional because there was no way she could relax in the presence of big names like Lucifer or Belial.
"She's still in there, somewhere, you know," said a voice near her.
Buffy turned her head, looking at Liberty. She could easily see the hurt on the girl's face.
"You miss her?"
"Yeah… I know, for a lot of people at Sunny High, it was good riddance for bad rubbish but there was a side of her you didn't see. Sometimes, I see a little of Lind's mask crack and… I see my sister again."
"Do you think you could convince her to let Aphrodisia check her? She's good at the mindwalking stuff."
She felt Liberty's heavy gaze. She was gauging her, probably matching whatever Dawn had told the angel about her big sister against what she could see.
"For Halloween, Harm dressed as an antique princess. To be precise, she dressed as Cassandra of Troy. I think the reason Lind is in the driver seat is because what my sister saw scared her."
"Oh boy," said Buffy, as her Mara part started to weigh the pros and cons of helping Harmony come back.
She pushed the thought aside. She might not be human anymore, but she wouldn't turn into a cold, calculating bitch. Instead, she started to go through a set of possible resources she could use for this operation…
Resources? Stop, breathe and repeat: people who can help, not resources you can use.
"I need to talk to a few people to pull that off. What is your Mom saying?"
"I think she's a little overwhelmed," almost whispered Liberty. "She and Dad had so much to do lately, so they just put it aside, thinking that at least Harmony wouldn't do anything rash with Lind in command."
"No offence, but that's typical Elohim bullshit, Libby. The needs of the many and all that."
"I know. Then maybe… maybe I need a demon to be selfish for me?"
"Maybe you do," replied Buffy with a kind smile. "I promise you. I'll find a way to bring back your sister."
She felt her promise being added to her file in Nidhogg and had a little smile.