Shades of Darkness
by zingrrrl
2
[reviews]
two
Buffy stood in the middle of the two lane highway, the only road in and out of Sunnydale, and waited, listening to the gusting wind howl. Near the heat blurred horizon she could make out the outline of the bus Warren rode in as it left the edge of town, heading down the long stretch of empty road, carrying him to her. She was surrounded by scrub brush and empty, stunted hills. And a strip of power lines that ran parallel with the road.
Smiling, her face otherwise drawn back in a tight grimace, she watched the bus approach her. If she was right, and the bastard was on this bus than he was going to die. Very painfully. She was gonna draw it out, make him bleed a lot, slowly. Maybe then he'd know some of her pain, pain he'd caused killing Dawn. Or maybe his death would just bring her satisfaction. At this point, either one worked for her.
Breathing deeply, oxygenating Slayer enhanced muscles, focusing on her center, she readied herself for the jump. The bus sped closer and she just stood there, still waiting. Not yet, just a bit closer. Don't mess this up Buffy, cause man it's going to hurt a hell of a lot if you do. Watch it. Now!
The bus driver saw her too late to stop. The breaks squealed as the driver tried to slow the lumbering bus. Buffy leaped high in the air and landed on the bus' roof as the vehicle passed over the spot in which she'd been standing. Kneeling, leaning forward, Buffy rode out the bus lurching to a stop by holding tightly to the roof's edges with her fingertips. She hopped down from the roof to land before the front door. Not bothering to wait for the bus driver to open it up, she kicked the door hard. Full Slayer strength shattered the glass and mangled the door's frame, sending it flying off its hinges and slamming into the bus driver, hitting just below his chin and snapping his neck with a loud crack. Buffy stared at him a moment, the blood dribbling down his chin. He gasped his last breath as Buffy leaped up onto the bus. My first human kill, she thought. Thought there'd be more guilt. She shrugged.
She scanned the isle, quickly taking in the faces, absorbing the fear of the passengers. Not seeing her prey, ignoring the screaming passengers, she smelled him, his fear distinctive and metallic. Coppery. Changing his odor, but not enough for her to miss the telltale smell of Dawn's killer. She'd never forget his smell. She enjoyed his fear.
Walking slowly down the isle, her fingers taping the back of each isle seat as she passed, she whistled softly, a quick and catchy tune, something by Sublime. Warren really disappointed her. She'd expected him to come right after her, perhaps with his gun, trying something crazy, desperate. Not this cowering, this hiding from his death. She'd hoped he'd go out fighting. Made it funner that way.
About half way down the length of the bus she stopped. Laying on the floor, wedged between the two seats was Warren, rolled up in a fetal position.. Tears rained down his cheeks. His body shook with sobs. "Where's your gun, Warren?" she asked.
"I ... I ... uhm," he stuttered, sweat and tears mixing, stinging his eyes. Rubbing them, he made them puffier, redder.
Buffy smiled, noticing the growing wet spot in the crotch of his pants. Frowned when the smell of urine hit her. What a sad sack, the total loser. Not even cool enough to be a nerd. You're going to die, having wet yourself. She giggled.
"Come on Warren, don't you want to shoot me?" she asked, nudging his shin with the tip of her big toe. Hard enough to crack the bone. He screamed. She giggled some more. This is fun, she thought, anticipation thrilling her, leaving her eager to use her strength on him, to see just how much of her power she could force him to take before she finished him.
"Oh, God," he mumbled. She hadn't even really kicked him and she broke his fucking leg! As he tried to sit up straight she snap kicked him in the mouth, sending his teeth down the back of his throat, breaking his jaw. He coughed his teeth back up and spit them to the ground, bright red blood spurting from his mouth. "Where's the gun?" she demanded again.
He spat blood onto the floor. "I, uh, threw it away. Murder weapon, you know?" he answered, his words barely intelligible mumbles as he spoke through a broken jaw. Breathing hurt as panic seized him. He was going to die here, he knew that, and Buffy could see the realization of that cross his rat like face. Nothing was going to stop her.
*---BtVS---*
Willow's stomach heaved upwards on her as she stepped onto the bus and saw the dead bus driver. Not the first dead body she'd seen, but she'd never gotten used to them. And this one, well Buffy did it. And that just made it so much worse. Buffy was a killer. Just thinking it seemed obscene. How could Buffy be a killer? But she is, Willow thought. I was too late!
Swallowing hard to keep the bile from going any higher than her throat, she stepped over the twisted door frame and looked down the center isle for Buffy. I'm too late, she thought again, trying to keep her breath even. Now was not the time for a panic attack. Panicking would be so much of the bad. Come on Willow, you can do this. You have to do this. I have to do this. Buffy needs me. I have to get through to her. I didn't bring her back to loose her to the dark!
"Buffy!" Willow called down the isle, spotting her best friend about half way down the bus' length. Heading for Buffy, Willow moved cautiously, afraid of what she might find, worried about setting the Slayer off. Willow looked at Buffy's face, trying to see her friend behind the mask of rage and grief the Slayer wore.
"Will, you shouldn't have come," Buffy said, never looking at her friend but keeping her eyes on Warren. His blood continued to flow freely from his shattered mouth, pooling in his lap and around his thighs. Buffy appeared fascinated studying the growing crimson puddle.
"I had to Buffy. I have to help you," Willow said, stopping about five feet away from the Slayer. Willow rubbed her palms against the thighs of her jeans, trying to dry the sweat that revealed her nervousness. She knew it was all on the line, everything they'd worked so hard for over the years. The world. How many times had they saved the world? Too many to count? Too much history. To Willow, it was worth preserving.
"I can kill a nerd all by my lonesome, Willow," Buffy said, smirking. Willow did not like the look on Buffy's face one bit, it was so cold, inhuman even. Not something Willow ever wanted to see on her best friend's face.
"To help you not kill," Willow said.
Buffy barked out a harsh, bitter laugh. "You're a little late there, Will." She nodded her head toward the front of the bus. "Classic case of wrong place at the wrong time. But, hey, it happens." Buffy shrugged.
Warren, coughing blood, tried to stand. Buffy chopped at his ribs with a quick jab, sending him crashing to the blood slick floor. Willow tried to ignore his biting scream as she stepped closer to Buffy. She needed to touch Buffy, to assure them both they were still human, still capable of human contact.
"Buffy, please!" Willow pleaded, putting a hand on Buffy's shoulder. Buffy shrugged it off, stepping back from her friend. Willow sighed, unable to hide her hurt feelings, her lips twisting into a hurt frown. Gotta be the hard way, eh Slayer, she thought. Stubborn to a fault. You're not going down this road Buffy. I won't let you. I won't loose you. Not now.
"I'm sorry, Willow," Buffy said, her sincerity evident in her voice. Something to get through to, Willow noticing the remorse in Buffy's hazel eyes, thought hopefully. She's still in there. Still Buffy.
Taking in Warren's condition for the first time, Willow winced at the damage done to the young misogynist. Buffy was well on her way to killing him by the looks of his tattered body. Willow shook her head as she noticed the bubbles in the blood still gushing from his mouth. Probably a punctured lung from that last chop to the ribs.
"Thicken," Willow said, flinging a pinch of white powder in Buffy's face, causing the air around Buffy to shimmer, take on the consistency of jello. Veins bulged on Buffy's forehead and throat as the Slayer struggled against the magics holding her in place, yet it took less than a second for her to be frozen in place. Unable to move. Unable to hurt Warren.
"You're crossing a line here, Will," Buffy said, glaring at her friend, her eyes piercing Willow with her contempt. "Use magic on me for ..." Buffy looked down at Warren's bruised and bloodied body. He was barely conscious. "... that piece of shit. That's something we can't come back from, Willow."
Willow closed her eyes and tried to think. She had to get through to Buffy, get her to understand it didn't have to be like this. That there was something worth living for, that she didn't have to create a world in which she couldn't live. Give her hope? God, if I mess this up. No I can't mess this up. I can't. She's still Buffy, and I'm Willow. I can do this. Willow opened her eyes.
The distant rumble of a large, fast approaching motor cycle thundered over the din of the frightened passengers. A baby cried in the back. Warren pushed himself up into his seat, leaving a trail of blood wherever his hands touched. Coughing, he felt at least a half dozen ribs bite, likely broken. With the way he kept gurgling up bubbly blood, Willow felt her earlier guess was a certainty, at least one of those ribs had punctured one of his lungs. Badly.
"What point are you trying to make, Will?" Buffy asked. "Found a reason to feed that addiction of yours, eh? All it took was betraying your best friend," Buffy hissed, tensing her muscles, focusing her energy against Willow's force field.
Willow felt Buffy's focused effort's against her force field as a stabbing twing in the back of her neck. The motorcycle's thundering grew louder. Amazing, Willow thought, feeling the power radiate off of Buffy as the Slayer fought Willow's spell. No training, no formal counter spells, yet she's beating me. I better think of something quick. Willow wondered how she'd never noticed this kind of power in Buffy before. Where had the Slayer hidden that much mystical energy?
The motorcycle's engine died suddenly just outside the bus. The body, Willow thought as she heard the steps of someone wearing hard soled boots enter the bus. Nothing she could do about that, at least not yet. Maybe later, a glamour to fool the police. And definitely a forget spell on the passengers. Couldn't have coherent witnesses, not against Buffy. No matter how just, no way was she facing punishment. Willow was trying to save Buffy from herself for mostly selfish reasons. She couldn't bear the thought of a life without Buffy Summers.
"Hey, Red!" Faith called from the entrance, causing Willow to tense up. The crazy Slayer, Willow thought, focusing her energies, not sure what to expect from the rogue. Or the other crazy Slayer, anyway.
*---BtVS---*
Cordelia Chase looked down from a higher plane at Faith. The Slayer had almost reached the bus, and Cordelia needed to have a face to face with the brash, headstrong girl. Couldn't have her going into that scene half cocked. Too much at stake, big plans for Buffy. Couldn't have Faith thinking revenge, or thinking about joining in on the fun. Cordy needed Faith to help Willow for now. The Slayer had her own part to play, but that was later, when all the pieces were in place.
Freezing time, Cordy reached down through the planes and snatched up Faith, forming a bubble of reality around them, a relaxing garden, a place for Faith's mind to anchor against the shifting realities of the higher planes. She put Faith down next to a pond filled with forearm sized mutant koi and empty lily pads.
"What the fuck!" yelled Faith.
"Attitude much?" Cordelia raised her eyebrows as she asked the question sarcastically.. "Have you changed at all?"
"What do you want?" asked Faith. "And Queen C? What the fuck are you?"
"A Power that Is?" Cordy shrugged. "One of the Powers that Be? Very low on the totem pole, anyway."
"When did this happen?" asked Faith, more curious than angry.
"About three days ago?" Cordelia shrugged. "It's kinda hard to tell. Time doesn't mean the same thing here."
"So what do you want?" Faith asked, irritated and agitated.
"I need to make sure you know your role in things here. The rules have changed and a new kind of war is coming. Balances are shifting. Which way it goes is still very much up in the air. Until I tell you otherwise, you do as Willow tells you, you just help Willow. Got that?"
"Help the geek, got it," Faith said, glaring at Cordelia. "Is that what the dream's about? Getting me to be nerdette's girl Friday?"
"Something like that, Faith."
"Damn vague answers," Faith grumbled. "Why me! Why should I!"
Cordy smirked. "You're the Slayer, Faith. And a fresh start."
"Huh?"
"You'll be the Slayer, the one everyone turns to. You'll have the chance to prove to them all that you're a good Slayer, that you can get the job done. Hell, you might even find out that you are a good person along the way. At least your record will be clean." Cordelia said the last with a sincere, but purposefully plastic grin.
"So if I help Red save Buffy ..."
"Buffy can't be saved," Cordy interrupted. "But she can be salvaged. And given the opportunity to save herself. You know how that goes."
Faith nodded. "Okay."
*---BtVS---*
Buffy focused, centering herself. Reached down deep for the primitive, the essence of the Slayer. She felt Willow's spell weakening, loosing consistency, but she needed to hit at it's shell with more energy than she currently accessed to make it collapse. As far into the core of the Slayer Buffy's mind went, she suddenly found herself in a dark cave, the only illumination a small fire. Three men sat around the fire, looking at her like she was a commodity of some kind.
She sat on the opposite side of the fire from them, on the hard ground, cross legged, her wrists and ankles shackled and chained to the ground. She pulled against the chains, trying to stand. And couldn't budge from her position.
Glaring at the three obvious shamans, Buffy noticed that all three wore matching orange robes with brown fur running down the middle and held long, gnarled oaken staffs. The one on her left wore a towering felt brown hat, the one on the right an identical but black hat, and the one in the center wore a red hat.
"We are at the beginning. The source of your strength. The well of the Slayer's
power," the man in the brown hat said.
"This is why you have come," the man in the red hat said. "Why we have brought you here."
"I thought I brought me here," Buffy said, her tone edged with sarcasm. "Listen, you guys. I'm the Slayer, but I really need more power."
"The First Slayer did not talk so much," the man in the red hat said.
As Buffy hissed and struggled against her bonds, the shamans tapped their staffs in a rhythmic beat and chanted in an archaic language completely unintelligible to Buffy. The man in the red hat reached behind himself and grabbed a small, plain, wooden box. He held the box over the fire and removed the flat top.
"Herein lies your truest strength," he said.
"The energy of the demon. Its spirit," the man in the black hat said.
"The demon's heart," the man in the brown hat said.
"This is how you ..." questioned Buffy.
"Created the slayer?"the man in the red hat said, nodding. "Yes."
Long tendrils of oily black smoke rose from the box and danced with the flames of the fire. The shamans changed the rhythm they beat with their staffs, increasing the tempo, the thumping echoing around in the small cave.
"It will become one with you," the man in the brown hat said.
"Yes!" Buffy shouted.
"This will make you ready for your fight," the man in the brown hat said.
"This is how it was then. How it must be now," the man in the red hat said.
"This is all there is," the man in the black hat said.
Suddenly, the man in the red had hat slammed the box shut and the black tendrils disappeared into the flickering fire. "She is the rogue," he said. "She has changed places with the other one. The power is not hers."
Putting everything she had, her strength, her hidden energies, into one lunge against her bonds, Buffy snapped all the chains holding her in place. She stood, smirking, leaning her head to the side, she turned it to crack her neck. She punched the man in the red hat in the throat, crushing his larynx, ignoring the heat of the flames kissing her arm. As he collapsed to his knees, she snatched the box from his grasp and flipped open the lid.
The black smoke tendrils rose up out of the box and swirled around her. Screaming as the black smoke entered her body through her open mouth, her ears, and her nose, she felt her being infused with power, saturated. She dropped the box and screamed, fell, her knees slamming hard against the cave floor. Standing, she suddenly found herself back on the bus, free of Willow's spell.
*---BtVS---*
Willow watched in horror, unable to move, nearly spent from her lost magical battle with Buffy, as Buffy pulled a knife from her sleeve and leaned in close to Warren. Faith lunged for Buffy's knife arm, but wasn't going to get there in time. Sliding the razer sharp blade along Warren's thick neck, Buffy severed his jugular vein. Blood spurted in a long arch with his heart beat, splashing against Buffy's chest, soaking her no longer white blouse.
Faith stopped, stepping back, not wanting to push the issue over an already dead man. Looking at Willow, she nodded, letting the witch know that she'd follow Willow's lead.
"Oh, Buffy," Willow said, looking at her friend, not liking what she saw. Buffy's eyes burned with a fiery incandescence, no longer quite human, primeval. Willow just stared at her best friend, and saw nothing of the kind and compassionate woman Willow'd known for so long in Buffy's face, a face now all hard, sharp angles. The Slayer, Willow thought. I'm looking at just the Slayer. Buffy isn't even in there right now.
Buffy stepped gingerly around Willow, but never taking her eyes off Faith. Waiting for the other Slayer to make a move. Slipping the knife back in her sleeve, Faith wasn't a target, just another person in Buffy's way, she grinned as Faith took a step toward her.
"Let her go," Willow said.
Faith stopped moving towards Buffy, who continued down the bus' isle, headed for the broken door.
"Something happened," Willow said. "To her I mean cause nothing happened to me other than my spell failed but that's what I meant by something happened to Buffy I mean 'cause where did she learn how to break that spell she had no idea how to do that yet I felt from the start that she was winning that she had access to a whole lot more power than me and then she tapped that power ..."
"Breath red," Faith said. "You look like you're gonna pass out. And Buffy just left the bus."
CONT