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jedibuttercupPG-13, B:tVS/Stargate SG-1; 3400 words. (Part 4 of See For Yourself; for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
multific.)
What she chose here didn't just affect her, it affected all the other girls who might have been her if not for an accident of timing-- and the friends who still had faith in her, despite everything.
Title: See For Yourself, Part 4 - Unwelcome Revelations
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds belong to Whedon and SyFy.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: B:tVS mid-7.15 "Get it Done", Stargate SG-1 mid-season 8, AU
Notes: Follows Parts One through Three. The AU-ness picks up speed.
Summary: What she chose here didn't just affect her, it affected all the other girls who might have been her if not for an accident of timing-- and the friends who still had faith in her, despite everything. 3400 words.
"Chained her to the earth. Great," Buffy muttered to herself, blinking against the strangely flat light as consciousness returned. And as if that confirmation hadn't been enough, she wobbled to her feet only to be greeted by the Three Wise Dudes chanting in their ancient language again.
They'd moved her to a cave or something; stone walls curved around her, and there were heavy metal brackets around her wrists, thick enough that a quick test of Slayer strength didn't budge them at all. A shaft of sunlight speared down from somewhere above, streaking across the floor to illuminate a shape drawn on the stone. It had been smeared in place in a black and ochre spiraling pattern-- a recognition of detail that proved she'd spent far too much time around Willow in witchy mode over the years. The stone directly beneath Buffy's heeled boots had been altered as well, carved deep into a smaller circular shape as though to contain the prisoner standing with in it.
To contain Her. Buffy knew exactly where she was, now.
"We are at the beginning," the shamans intoned, talking down to her as earnestly as Travers ever had. Yeah, these guys were proto-Watchers all right. "The source of your strength. The well of the Slayer's power."
It still bothered her that she could understand them. But it bothered her worse that they hadn't even asked her if she would be willing to do this.
She'd jumped into the portal knowing what she was going to face, thanks to Dawnie and her ambiguously affiliated boyfriend, but waking up with shackles around her wrists still gave her a powerful urge to reject whatever they offered. Blah blah cultural paradigms blah-- it wasn't right. She could feel the approach of the box in their hands vibrating along every nerve and cramping in her gut; it didn't soothe her at all to know that they'd probably chosen a girl to do this to the first time because that way they wouldn't lose a person if it all went wrong.
She didn't even want to know how they saw her, given that their first response to her totally reasonable request for an explanation was to say that the First Slayer hadn't talked so much. Ugh.
She swallowed, bracing herself as long tentacles of inky black smoke streamed up out of the box and snaked through the air as though sniffing her out. The drumbeats in the background weren't helping with her resolve; they were actually making her apprehension worse. How could letting this-- this thing, this so-called spirit and heart of a demon, 'become one' with her make things better?
Only two things kept Buffy from screaming with rage and denial-- well, three. First, her dream a couple of nights before; the First Slayer had told her that what she was already doing wasn't enough. How could she go back with no more answers than she had already? Especially since Sineya was the source of Buffy's prophetic visions... the ancient warrior had to've known Buffy would face the same violation she'd experienced, and had still told her she needed it. She had only to remember Chloe's swollen face as she'd buried her-- and the sickening rush of guilt and rage as the First had parroted her words about the Potentials' likelihood of survival back in her face-- to know that much was true.
Second, Spike was right; why would the Watchers-- obsessed as they were with keeping their Slayers on the straight and narrow-- keep passing tools to every Chosen One that could make them turn evil? Surely they knew what was in it, if they'd been passing it Watcher to Watcher for so long. Who knew, if Principal Wood hadn't been bogarting the thing since his mom died, she might even have thought to use it against the Mayor... and maybe all her classmates who'd died that day would have lived instead.
She swallowed down the sudden distracting surge of anger-- as if she had any room to talk about making questionable decisions based on personal attachments-- and took a deep breath, tilting her head back as tendrils of darkness streamed up her nose. Third... if she had to face this anyway? She was going to reclaim as much choice as she could and stare it down like the Slayer she was. She glared at the smug robe-clad guys as her sinuses flared with fiery pain, the back of her throat began to tickle, and she had to cough to keep from choking on her own breath.
This wasn't about her. This wasn't about her desire to be normal, her long-held wish that she could reject the responsibility that had been marked down for her before her birth. Her mom had told her once that wanting to lead was no measure of talent; she was a leader, and it was up to her to either make the most of it or let her power go to waste. What she chose here didn't just affect her, it affected all the other girls who might have been her if not for an accident of timing-- and the friends who still had faith in her, despite everything.
My name is Buffy Summers, she chanted in the privacy of her thoughts as tears seeped from the corners of her eyes and adrenaline thundered through her veins. Dizziness threatened; she sagged against the chains again, eyes still fixed on her captors. You can put the darkness in me, but it won't make me dark. You're just men, and I will take this curse you're giving me and use it to make sure all those girls have more choices than I did. My name is Buffy Summers....
The last of the smoke streamed into her, and everything went white-hot for half a breath. She couldn't hear; she couldn't see; she couldn't feel anything beyond the all-consuming agony kindled in every cell. Then, as swiftly as the pain had flared, it faded-- leaving a minty-fresh kind of all-over tingle and crystal clarity behind it.
She understood now. Oh, she understood; Sineya had been right to warn her.
"... and I am the Slayer," she finished aloud, breaking her chains as easily as if they were made of paper.
The ancient Watcher types broke off their drumming then, staring uneasily at each other.
The harsh scent of long-smoldering rage filled Buffy's thoughts, and she smiled.
Nick was breathing hard by the time he and Jon finally found the fleeing thing and the blond-haired man who'd chased after it. They heard the ongoing fight before they saw it, and put on the brakes in time to peer around a corner and down an alleyway at the action without being discovered.
It was disquieting to watch; the pair were both apparently a lot faster and stronger than ordinary human beings. Given the stranger one's oversized build and its obvious warrior culture accouterments, it was possible it had even been bred for battle-- and Goa'uld or not, it was pretty clear Spike was cut from similar cloth. His eyes had gone golden, which fit with the team's initial suspicions, but the whole shape of his facial bones had shifted, which didn't; and his teeth had changed, too. Nick wasn't sure what to make of it, yet; all his assumptions had fallen apart over the last twenty-four hours.
"Now what," Jon whispered, zat armed and half-raised toward the brawling figures.
"We're not supposed to draw attention to ourselves," Nick murmured back, "but after whatever that was on the rooftop? We're already involved."
"No shit, Sherlock," Jon snorted, "but which one do we shoot? Or do we just take them both?"
Nick winced as the horned being threw Spike bodily into a brick wall. The human-looking whatever he was slid down to the ground, the blue button-up shirt he wore over his black tee bunching up under his arms. Then he shook his head and popped back up to his feet, throwing himself against his opponent.
"Oh, come on now, Nancy. Call yourself a demon?" Spike taunted as he tackled it, sending it staggering with an enthusiastically delivered head butt. "I thought you were up for a proper fight!"
His triumph only lasted for a second, though; it charged in Spike's direction again as soon as it had regained its balance, throwing a series of punches that connected with punishing force. Spike fought back, throwing punches of his own, but was steadily driven back against the wall; then he kicked out at it, pushing it back across the alley, and the fight went on.
Nick didn't kid himself that anything human could take as much damage as either of them was dishing out, and the longer he and Jon stood there, the likelier it was that they'd find that out first hand. There was no telling how long the fight was going to take; Spike and the thing he'd called 'demon' seemed fairly evenly matched, and neither one had taken the opportunity to give the typical gloating villain speech. That meant letting it all play out was unlikely to give them any more clues about which side to back-- provided there was a 'right side' to the conflict.
On the one hand, he remembered the research he and Daniel had done on the vicious and impulse-driven killer known as 'William the Bloody'... and the fact that the being Spike was fighting looked brutal didn't necessarily preclude its innocence. On the other hand-- it would be pretty irresponsible of him to let his experiences with Chaka affect the situation, especially since the creature had yet to speak a word to give evidence of its intelligence, and even if Spike was lying about his identity to the Summers household shouldn't that just make it more unlikely for him to have risked his cover so baldly?
"Both," he whispered back to Jon, aiming his zat at the nearer one: the bloody-knuckled blond.
"Right," Jon agreed, aiming at the craggy alien. "One shot first; two only if they're still moving."
"Duh." Zat'nik'atels had been created to control Goa'uld slaves, which meant they were optimized to affect human neurology; there was no telling what it would do to whatever these guys were. Three shots in close succession would disrupt molecular bonds and dematerialize anything, but the effects of a first and second shot often varied on sufficiently different physiology. They'd try for the stun shot first, but if that didn't work as expected, they'd have to risk the kill.
He waited as Jon counted down the seconds with upraised fingers, tracking Spike's movements with his zat. Three, two, one: two fingers shifted on the triggers of the phallically shaped Goa'uld weapons, releasing two streams of crackling energy to envelop the opponents. Jon had carefully timed the shots to strike when the fighters weren't in physical contact with each other, and the effects were immediate.
Spike slumped immediately, twitching, a strangled cry escaping him as he slid down with his back against a dumpster. His features shifted suddenly back to a human-smooth mask, the gold leaching out of his eyes as his forehead lost the rumpled, ridge-like look. He wasn't totally out, but he wasn't going to be moving for awhile, either; the spasms in his stiffened muscles were clearly visible.
The 'demon', on the other hand....
Jon swore under his breath as the tusked creature roared, shaking off the energy blast as though it were only a bee sting. It took a second for a zat to ready itself for a second shot, and that second was more than enough time for it to turn its charge in the boys' direction. Nick shifted his aim instinctively to cover the threat, but knew even as he moved that he wouldn't be fast enough.
Of course, he didn't need to be fast enough; Jon did. And Jon didn't let him down. The creature lit up again with the energy of a second blast, then crumpled at their feet about an arms-length away from them, collapsing first to its knees and then face first onto the paved ground.
"You want to check that thing for a pulse? 'Cause I sure don't," Jon groused, kicking at it with his toe.
"I think I'll pass, thanks," Nick said dryly as his heart rate slowed. "So, now what? Cuff them and call Jack again? We're not exactly equipped for prisoners, here."
"Thanks, but no thanks, mate," a strained voice ground out, and they turned to see the blond shakily levering himself back to his feet. "We're going to have to have a talk about just what you boys are equipped for here... but now's not the time."
Jon's zat shifted to cover him, and he thrust his chin out. "I don't think that's your decision to make."
"When Buffy's life is in danger, it sure as hell is," Spike replied, belligerently. "You going to use that thing? Go ahead and do it; at least if I'm dust I won't have to see the look on the Bit's face when you tell her her sister's never coming back."
Dust? ...'the Bit'? Did he mean Dawn? Nick laid a hand on Jon's arm, more convinced than ever that there was more going on than they had a frame of reference for. "What do you mean, Buffy's life is in danger?" he asked, slowly. "She didn't leave the house before you did; and if this being hurt her, how could chasing it help? Shouldn't she already be at the hospital?"
Spike sneered. "Watching us, were you? Might've known. You really have no idea what you've stepped in here, have you? Pity; could've used another couple of pairs of eyes keeping a look out for Dawn." He shook his head, then proceeded to ignore Jon and Nick entirely as he strode forward and bent down to shove the fallen creature's body over onto its back.
It was clearly dead, eyes open and glazed. Spike grunted with satisfaction, then got a good grip around its bare upper torso as though trying to lift it; he was still a little shaky from the zat blast, though, his enhanced strength apparently in abeyance for the moment. He frowned, then shifted his facial structure again-- forehead crinkling up, eyes going golden and teeth acquiring points-- before heaving the deadweight upward and over his shoulder.
Nick gasped as the myriad puzzle pieces finally fit themselves together in his mind. "Oh, my god," he said. "You're...."
No wonder the fighters in this town were so secretive about what they were up to; no wonder they never fought to clear their records or seek out extra help in their struggle. No wonder that even the government agencies that should have made every effort to investigate the causes of Sunnydale's alarmingly morbid statistics had nothing of substance to say about the matter. Whatever Spike was, his kind had to be the source of the world's vampire legends. The secret obviously wasn't as well kept as that of the alien genesis of many of Earth's cultures, but that was hardly a surprise with the instigators still living on the planet and hunting among her peoples. And yet-- those who believed in the supernatural were just as ostracized as Daniel Jackson had been, even before the word 'alien' had been officially associated with his research into the strange origins of the pyramids.
"I'm what?" Spike asked him irritably, standing slowly with the corpse of the creature-- which might really be a demon after all, or at least a member of a species whose existence had led to such folklore-- slung over his shoulder.
"Nick?" Jon prompted him worriedly, glancing back and forth between him and Spike with the zat still held protectively in front of him.
Nick cleared his throat, carefully addressing the mythic being staring him down. "If you are what I think you are, why should we believe you have any human being's interests at heart, much less Dawn or her sister's?"
Spike narrowed golden eyes at him. "So you think you've figured it out, then. You might have, at that; thought you might have half a brain. But as I said, there's no time to explain-- keep those zap guns pointed at me for all I care, just stay out of my way until we reach the house. Your questions can wait until after Buffy's back; she'll have a few of her own, I'm sure."
"You keep saying-- when she's back. Where the hell did she go?" Jon asked.
"How the hell should I know?" Spike replied in frustrated tones, then deliberately turned his back on them, trudging back toward the Summers house with his grisly burden. "There was a portal; all I know is, we 'made the exchange', and this sod appeared where she'd been. Stands to reason we aren't going to get her back 'til we throw him back through. You'd better hope it doesn't matter if he's dead; I won't be answerable if we end up with a dead Slayer on our hands."
"A portal?" Jon echoed incredulously.
Nick stumbled a little, following them, as his thoughts spun dizzily. Of course; if things like Spike and the 'demon' weren't native to Earth, they'd have to have arrived somehow-- and he recognized Spike's quote from Dawn's translation. The Ancients had used portals, after all, as had every race in the galaxy who'd followed them-- portals bounded by technology, known as Stargates or 'Doorways to Heaven'.
...Doorways to Heaven. And now he'd met 'demons'. Was it possible that the initial translation hadn't been as idiomatic as Daniel had assumed? What if they'd been named in such a way that it could take either meaning, partly in opposition to pre-existing 'Doorways to Hell' that operated via a considerably different method. Perhaps one sufficiently advanced to be referred to as 'magic'-- such as the chanting they'd heard in the Summers living room, and the flare of blue light that had followed it? There was always a kernel of truth at the root of most legends and myths, Nick knew; why not this, too?
Still, the entire concept was making his head hurt.
"You'll see, soon enough," came the vampire's snarled response. "Whether you'll believe it afterward... now that is another question entirely."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Jon objected, more aggressive than Nick in his confusion.
"Jon," Nick hissed, laying a hand on his friend's arm. "If he's not lying... I think we need to see this. If that thing on the rooftop was trying to keep us from following him? This could be as big as the first Abydos mission all over again."
Jon gave him a sharp look at that, then shook his head slowly. "All right, but I reserve the right to say 'I told you so' when we both get snaked-- or you know, not, since we won't be able to say anything."
Nick rolled his eyes at him. "Not going to happen-- whatever's going on here, I'm pretty convinced it has nothing to do with the Goa'uld. In fact, I'd be pretty interested to hear what Selmac might have to say about all this-- if Jack decides it's safe enough to tell him. Trust me; I'll explain later." Vampires, demons, possibly malevolent ghosts counting the thing that had pretended to be Janet... yeah, he was going to wait for a much calmer moment to open that can of worms.
"Whatever," Jon rolled his eyes back, but lowered the zat a little, still wary but less on edge with Nick's certainty to bolster him.
Nick had never been gladder that Loki had chosen to clone both Jack O'Neill and Daniel Jackson at the same time, interested in the traits that set both men apart from the rest of their species-- Jack's advanced Ancient gene and the traces left behind by Daniel's Ascension. Either one alone would have been miserable; and he certainly wouldn't have been here, on the brink of yet another impossible discovery.
If Nick was right about this, he and Jon had just tripped across something just as important as the SGC, a separate path they could blaze apart from their originators while still protecting their people.
He played rear guard all the way back to the house, the half of his brain not watching his surroundings sifting through all the relevant 'fairy tales' he could remember.
(x-posted tostargate_xing; full story also at AO3.)
multific.)What she chose here didn't just affect her, it affected all the other girls who might have been her if not for an accident of timing-- and the friends who still had faith in her, despite everything.
Title: See For Yourself, Part 4 - Unwelcome Revelations
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds belong to Whedon and SyFy.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: B:tVS mid-7.15 "Get it Done", Stargate SG-1 mid-season 8, AU
Notes: Follows Parts One through Three. The AU-ness picks up speed.
Summary: What she chose here didn't just affect her, it affected all the other girls who might have been her if not for an accident of timing-- and the friends who still had faith in her, despite everything. 3400 words.
"Chained her to the earth. Great," Buffy muttered to herself, blinking against the strangely flat light as consciousness returned. And as if that confirmation hadn't been enough, she wobbled to her feet only to be greeted by the Three Wise Dudes chanting in their ancient language again.
They'd moved her to a cave or something; stone walls curved around her, and there were heavy metal brackets around her wrists, thick enough that a quick test of Slayer strength didn't budge them at all. A shaft of sunlight speared down from somewhere above, streaking across the floor to illuminate a shape drawn on the stone. It had been smeared in place in a black and ochre spiraling pattern-- a recognition of detail that proved she'd spent far too much time around Willow in witchy mode over the years. The stone directly beneath Buffy's heeled boots had been altered as well, carved deep into a smaller circular shape as though to contain the prisoner standing with in it.
To contain Her. Buffy knew exactly where she was, now.
"We are at the beginning," the shamans intoned, talking down to her as earnestly as Travers ever had. Yeah, these guys were proto-Watchers all right. "The source of your strength. The well of the Slayer's power."
It still bothered her that she could understand them. But it bothered her worse that they hadn't even asked her if she would be willing to do this.
She'd jumped into the portal knowing what she was going to face, thanks to Dawnie and her ambiguously affiliated boyfriend, but waking up with shackles around her wrists still gave her a powerful urge to reject whatever they offered. Blah blah cultural paradigms blah-- it wasn't right. She could feel the approach of the box in their hands vibrating along every nerve and cramping in her gut; it didn't soothe her at all to know that they'd probably chosen a girl to do this to the first time because that way they wouldn't lose a person if it all went wrong.
She didn't even want to know how they saw her, given that their first response to her totally reasonable request for an explanation was to say that the First Slayer hadn't talked so much. Ugh.
She swallowed, bracing herself as long tentacles of inky black smoke streamed up out of the box and snaked through the air as though sniffing her out. The drumbeats in the background weren't helping with her resolve; they were actually making her apprehension worse. How could letting this-- this thing, this so-called spirit and heart of a demon, 'become one' with her make things better?
Only two things kept Buffy from screaming with rage and denial-- well, three. First, her dream a couple of nights before; the First Slayer had told her that what she was already doing wasn't enough. How could she go back with no more answers than she had already? Especially since Sineya was the source of Buffy's prophetic visions... the ancient warrior had to've known Buffy would face the same violation she'd experienced, and had still told her she needed it. She had only to remember Chloe's swollen face as she'd buried her-- and the sickening rush of guilt and rage as the First had parroted her words about the Potentials' likelihood of survival back in her face-- to know that much was true.
Second, Spike was right; why would the Watchers-- obsessed as they were with keeping their Slayers on the straight and narrow-- keep passing tools to every Chosen One that could make them turn evil? Surely they knew what was in it, if they'd been passing it Watcher to Watcher for so long. Who knew, if Principal Wood hadn't been bogarting the thing since his mom died, she might even have thought to use it against the Mayor... and maybe all her classmates who'd died that day would have lived instead.
She swallowed down the sudden distracting surge of anger-- as if she had any room to talk about making questionable decisions based on personal attachments-- and took a deep breath, tilting her head back as tendrils of darkness streamed up her nose. Third... if she had to face this anyway? She was going to reclaim as much choice as she could and stare it down like the Slayer she was. She glared at the smug robe-clad guys as her sinuses flared with fiery pain, the back of her throat began to tickle, and she had to cough to keep from choking on her own breath.
This wasn't about her. This wasn't about her desire to be normal, her long-held wish that she could reject the responsibility that had been marked down for her before her birth. Her mom had told her once that wanting to lead was no measure of talent; she was a leader, and it was up to her to either make the most of it or let her power go to waste. What she chose here didn't just affect her, it affected all the other girls who might have been her if not for an accident of timing-- and the friends who still had faith in her, despite everything.
My name is Buffy Summers, she chanted in the privacy of her thoughts as tears seeped from the corners of her eyes and adrenaline thundered through her veins. Dizziness threatened; she sagged against the chains again, eyes still fixed on her captors. You can put the darkness in me, but it won't make me dark. You're just men, and I will take this curse you're giving me and use it to make sure all those girls have more choices than I did. My name is Buffy Summers....
The last of the smoke streamed into her, and everything went white-hot for half a breath. She couldn't hear; she couldn't see; she couldn't feel anything beyond the all-consuming agony kindled in every cell. Then, as swiftly as the pain had flared, it faded-- leaving a minty-fresh kind of all-over tingle and crystal clarity behind it.
She understood now. Oh, she understood; Sineya had been right to warn her.
"... and I am the Slayer," she finished aloud, breaking her chains as easily as if they were made of paper.
The ancient Watcher types broke off their drumming then, staring uneasily at each other.
The harsh scent of long-smoldering rage filled Buffy's thoughts, and she smiled.
Nick was breathing hard by the time he and Jon finally found the fleeing thing and the blond-haired man who'd chased after it. They heard the ongoing fight before they saw it, and put on the brakes in time to peer around a corner and down an alleyway at the action without being discovered.
It was disquieting to watch; the pair were both apparently a lot faster and stronger than ordinary human beings. Given the stranger one's oversized build and its obvious warrior culture accouterments, it was possible it had even been bred for battle-- and Goa'uld or not, it was pretty clear Spike was cut from similar cloth. His eyes had gone golden, which fit with the team's initial suspicions, but the whole shape of his facial bones had shifted, which didn't; and his teeth had changed, too. Nick wasn't sure what to make of it, yet; all his assumptions had fallen apart over the last twenty-four hours.
"Now what," Jon whispered, zat armed and half-raised toward the brawling figures.
"We're not supposed to draw attention to ourselves," Nick murmured back, "but after whatever that was on the rooftop? We're already involved."
"No shit, Sherlock," Jon snorted, "but which one do we shoot? Or do we just take them both?"
Nick winced as the horned being threw Spike bodily into a brick wall. The human-looking whatever he was slid down to the ground, the blue button-up shirt he wore over his black tee bunching up under his arms. Then he shook his head and popped back up to his feet, throwing himself against his opponent.
"Oh, come on now, Nancy. Call yourself a demon?" Spike taunted as he tackled it, sending it staggering with an enthusiastically delivered head butt. "I thought you were up for a proper fight!"
His triumph only lasted for a second, though; it charged in Spike's direction again as soon as it had regained its balance, throwing a series of punches that connected with punishing force. Spike fought back, throwing punches of his own, but was steadily driven back against the wall; then he kicked out at it, pushing it back across the alley, and the fight went on.
Nick didn't kid himself that anything human could take as much damage as either of them was dishing out, and the longer he and Jon stood there, the likelier it was that they'd find that out first hand. There was no telling how long the fight was going to take; Spike and the thing he'd called 'demon' seemed fairly evenly matched, and neither one had taken the opportunity to give the typical gloating villain speech. That meant letting it all play out was unlikely to give them any more clues about which side to back-- provided there was a 'right side' to the conflict.
On the one hand, he remembered the research he and Daniel had done on the vicious and impulse-driven killer known as 'William the Bloody'... and the fact that the being Spike was fighting looked brutal didn't necessarily preclude its innocence. On the other hand-- it would be pretty irresponsible of him to let his experiences with Chaka affect the situation, especially since the creature had yet to speak a word to give evidence of its intelligence, and even if Spike was lying about his identity to the Summers household shouldn't that just make it more unlikely for him to have risked his cover so baldly?
"Both," he whispered back to Jon, aiming his zat at the nearer one: the bloody-knuckled blond.
"Right," Jon agreed, aiming at the craggy alien. "One shot first; two only if they're still moving."
"Duh." Zat'nik'atels had been created to control Goa'uld slaves, which meant they were optimized to affect human neurology; there was no telling what it would do to whatever these guys were. Three shots in close succession would disrupt molecular bonds and dematerialize anything, but the effects of a first and second shot often varied on sufficiently different physiology. They'd try for the stun shot first, but if that didn't work as expected, they'd have to risk the kill.
He waited as Jon counted down the seconds with upraised fingers, tracking Spike's movements with his zat. Three, two, one: two fingers shifted on the triggers of the phallically shaped Goa'uld weapons, releasing two streams of crackling energy to envelop the opponents. Jon had carefully timed the shots to strike when the fighters weren't in physical contact with each other, and the effects were immediate.
Spike slumped immediately, twitching, a strangled cry escaping him as he slid down with his back against a dumpster. His features shifted suddenly back to a human-smooth mask, the gold leaching out of his eyes as his forehead lost the rumpled, ridge-like look. He wasn't totally out, but he wasn't going to be moving for awhile, either; the spasms in his stiffened muscles were clearly visible.
The 'demon', on the other hand....
Jon swore under his breath as the tusked creature roared, shaking off the energy blast as though it were only a bee sting. It took a second for a zat to ready itself for a second shot, and that second was more than enough time for it to turn its charge in the boys' direction. Nick shifted his aim instinctively to cover the threat, but knew even as he moved that he wouldn't be fast enough.
Of course, he didn't need to be fast enough; Jon did. And Jon didn't let him down. The creature lit up again with the energy of a second blast, then crumpled at their feet about an arms-length away from them, collapsing first to its knees and then face first onto the paved ground.
"You want to check that thing for a pulse? 'Cause I sure don't," Jon groused, kicking at it with his toe.
"I think I'll pass, thanks," Nick said dryly as his heart rate slowed. "So, now what? Cuff them and call Jack again? We're not exactly equipped for prisoners, here."
"Thanks, but no thanks, mate," a strained voice ground out, and they turned to see the blond shakily levering himself back to his feet. "We're going to have to have a talk about just what you boys are equipped for here... but now's not the time."
Jon's zat shifted to cover him, and he thrust his chin out. "I don't think that's your decision to make."
"When Buffy's life is in danger, it sure as hell is," Spike replied, belligerently. "You going to use that thing? Go ahead and do it; at least if I'm dust I won't have to see the look on the Bit's face when you tell her her sister's never coming back."
Dust? ...'the Bit'? Did he mean Dawn? Nick laid a hand on Jon's arm, more convinced than ever that there was more going on than they had a frame of reference for. "What do you mean, Buffy's life is in danger?" he asked, slowly. "She didn't leave the house before you did; and if this being hurt her, how could chasing it help? Shouldn't she already be at the hospital?"
Spike sneered. "Watching us, were you? Might've known. You really have no idea what you've stepped in here, have you? Pity; could've used another couple of pairs of eyes keeping a look out for Dawn." He shook his head, then proceeded to ignore Jon and Nick entirely as he strode forward and bent down to shove the fallen creature's body over onto its back.
It was clearly dead, eyes open and glazed. Spike grunted with satisfaction, then got a good grip around its bare upper torso as though trying to lift it; he was still a little shaky from the zat blast, though, his enhanced strength apparently in abeyance for the moment. He frowned, then shifted his facial structure again-- forehead crinkling up, eyes going golden and teeth acquiring points-- before heaving the deadweight upward and over his shoulder.
Nick gasped as the myriad puzzle pieces finally fit themselves together in his mind. "Oh, my god," he said. "You're...."
No wonder the fighters in this town were so secretive about what they were up to; no wonder they never fought to clear their records or seek out extra help in their struggle. No wonder that even the government agencies that should have made every effort to investigate the causes of Sunnydale's alarmingly morbid statistics had nothing of substance to say about the matter. Whatever Spike was, his kind had to be the source of the world's vampire legends. The secret obviously wasn't as well kept as that of the alien genesis of many of Earth's cultures, but that was hardly a surprise with the instigators still living on the planet and hunting among her peoples. And yet-- those who believed in the supernatural were just as ostracized as Daniel Jackson had been, even before the word 'alien' had been officially associated with his research into the strange origins of the pyramids.
"I'm what?" Spike asked him irritably, standing slowly with the corpse of the creature-- which might really be a demon after all, or at least a member of a species whose existence had led to such folklore-- slung over his shoulder.
"Nick?" Jon prompted him worriedly, glancing back and forth between him and Spike with the zat still held protectively in front of him.
Nick cleared his throat, carefully addressing the mythic being staring him down. "If you are what I think you are, why should we believe you have any human being's interests at heart, much less Dawn or her sister's?"
Spike narrowed golden eyes at him. "So you think you've figured it out, then. You might have, at that; thought you might have half a brain. But as I said, there's no time to explain-- keep those zap guns pointed at me for all I care, just stay out of my way until we reach the house. Your questions can wait until after Buffy's back; she'll have a few of her own, I'm sure."
"You keep saying-- when she's back. Where the hell did she go?" Jon asked.
"How the hell should I know?" Spike replied in frustrated tones, then deliberately turned his back on them, trudging back toward the Summers house with his grisly burden. "There was a portal; all I know is, we 'made the exchange', and this sod appeared where she'd been. Stands to reason we aren't going to get her back 'til we throw him back through. You'd better hope it doesn't matter if he's dead; I won't be answerable if we end up with a dead Slayer on our hands."
"A portal?" Jon echoed incredulously.
Nick stumbled a little, following them, as his thoughts spun dizzily. Of course; if things like Spike and the 'demon' weren't native to Earth, they'd have to have arrived somehow-- and he recognized Spike's quote from Dawn's translation. The Ancients had used portals, after all, as had every race in the galaxy who'd followed them-- portals bounded by technology, known as Stargates or 'Doorways to Heaven'.
...Doorways to Heaven. And now he'd met 'demons'. Was it possible that the initial translation hadn't been as idiomatic as Daniel had assumed? What if they'd been named in such a way that it could take either meaning, partly in opposition to pre-existing 'Doorways to Hell' that operated via a considerably different method. Perhaps one sufficiently advanced to be referred to as 'magic'-- such as the chanting they'd heard in the Summers living room, and the flare of blue light that had followed it? There was always a kernel of truth at the root of most legends and myths, Nick knew; why not this, too?
Still, the entire concept was making his head hurt.
"You'll see, soon enough," came the vampire's snarled response. "Whether you'll believe it afterward... now that is another question entirely."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Jon objected, more aggressive than Nick in his confusion.
"Jon," Nick hissed, laying a hand on his friend's arm. "If he's not lying... I think we need to see this. If that thing on the rooftop was trying to keep us from following him? This could be as big as the first Abydos mission all over again."
Jon gave him a sharp look at that, then shook his head slowly. "All right, but I reserve the right to say 'I told you so' when we both get snaked-- or you know, not, since we won't be able to say anything."
Nick rolled his eyes at him. "Not going to happen-- whatever's going on here, I'm pretty convinced it has nothing to do with the Goa'uld. In fact, I'd be pretty interested to hear what Selmac might have to say about all this-- if Jack decides it's safe enough to tell him. Trust me; I'll explain later." Vampires, demons, possibly malevolent ghosts counting the thing that had pretended to be Janet... yeah, he was going to wait for a much calmer moment to open that can of worms.
"Whatever," Jon rolled his eyes back, but lowered the zat a little, still wary but less on edge with Nick's certainty to bolster him.
Nick had never been gladder that Loki had chosen to clone both Jack O'Neill and Daniel Jackson at the same time, interested in the traits that set both men apart from the rest of their species-- Jack's advanced Ancient gene and the traces left behind by Daniel's Ascension. Either one alone would have been miserable; and he certainly wouldn't have been here, on the brink of yet another impossible discovery.
If Nick was right about this, he and Jon had just tripped across something just as important as the SGC, a separate path they could blaze apart from their originators while still protecting their people.
He played rear guard all the way back to the house, the half of his brain not watching his surroundings sifting through all the relevant 'fairy tales' he could remember.
(x-posted to
stargate_xing; full story also at AO3.)
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Date: 2011-06-27 03:35 pm (UTC)Anyway, I am very grateful for this update, thank you!
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Date: 2011-06-28 06:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-28 08:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-06 03:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-06 05:22 am (UTC)I'm glad you're enjoying this take on the idea!
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Date: 2011-06-29 05:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-01 08:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-29 09:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-01 09:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-01 09:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 06:27 am (UTC)please pardon me poking my nose in
Date: 2011-07-06 03:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-06 05:23 am (UTC)