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(This is original creative material copyright Chris Kenworthy, based on characters that he has no right to owned by someone else blah blah biddy blah...) Author's note: To start with, everybody's still stuck in Limbo, including Kaliya, who's trying to bring old vampires back with the help of vampire-Giles and Ethan Rayne. Buffy and co have found the ghosts of some old friends- Giles, Jenny, Kendra and Jesse, but Mister Tojo's been imprisoned by a Horror. |
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Last time: Amy and the other witches she was working with showed up, Cordelia discovered Buffy and Xander making out and flew out of control, temper and witch-wise. Buffy stopped Witch-Cordelia with a dangerous grounding ritual, and we're not yet quite sure how well that worked.
Xander looked up at them from the recliner in the Rosenberg living room. "Hey, Will. What's up?"
"Have you seen Giles or..." Willow broke off as Giles ghosted into the room. "Oh. Hi, Giles. Uh, this might be a little difficult to convince you of, especially since you can't verify it by touch the way I did..."
"What's going on?" Vanessa Bateman said as she came towards them from the dining room.
"I, uh, well, Angel, that is, I think..." Willow stammered.
"Willow said she thought I was pregnant," Angel supplied, suppressing a breathy chuckle. "Is that even remotely possible?"
"I wouldn't think..." Giles began, but Vanessa interrupted him.
"Just maybe," the witch said. Angel, Giles, and Xander looked up at her in surprise. "Oh, not that it wouldn't be completely without precedent, but from what I hear, you've been exposed to some extremely powerful magic recently, Angel." Vanessa' voice assumed a lecturing tone. "When that kind of enchantment enters the mix, it has a tendency to make the impossible possible. Also, you were in Hell for several months, and Hell is widely said to be where all one's worst nightmares begin. The thought of suffering through childhood is one of the worst nightmares for any male, wouldn't you say?" The look on the faces of Angel, Xander and Giles was answer enough.
Just then the front door opened. "Make way, coming through!" Hank Summers called out. As the rest of them turned to watch with dismay, Hank rushed into the room, carrying an insentient girl in his arms.
"Buffy!" Xander called out as he saw her face, the beautiful eyes closed. "Ohmigod! Is she okay?"
"We don't know that yet, genius," Darrell Flatt shot snidely at Xander as followed Hank through the room. The young warlock was carrying Cordelia, who was unconscious like Buffy. The girls were quickly laid down on the couch and recliner.
"What happened?" Vanessa said, inspecting Cordelia's unconscious form. "The final defense?"
"The final defense," Darrell said, nodding. "The Slayer got caught in the backwash. There were some very interesting energy effects, but I couldn't tell for the life of me what was happening."
"Okay," Vanessa said, nodding. "We need to figure that out, and for that, we need blood tests run. First order of business is to check the state of the imbued powers - that'll take a psi-potential blot, a power utilization smear, and a matrix test. On both of them - the powers might have transferred from Cordelia to Buffy. After that, well, just about every other test we can think of - the kind of side effects the final defense can generate are just about limitless. Giles, do you have any laboratory facilities set up?" She blushed faintly. "No, I guess you wouldn't..."
"Mister Tojo put his workshop equipment in the basement of the Chase house," Willow supplied helpfully.
"Good enough. Let's go."
Quickly people started to bustle out of the Rosenberg living room, either carrying unconscious teenagers, discussing arcane magical blood tests, or just hovering worriedly. In a matter of seconds, only one person was left.
"Hello?" Angel muttered disgustedly to himself. "Pregnant vampire here - how does everybody forget about that?" After a few seconds, he tromped unsteadily out the door, chasing slowly after the ragged procession.
* * * *
Across town, Kaliya was once more gazing into her magic mirror, looking at the hubbub the collapse of the Slayer and that other girl had caused. Smiling, she gazed over to the far end of her room. There were now five large receptacles there, vaguely coffin-shaped.
Kaliya stood up, still carrying the mirror in her hand, and walked over to inspect the receptacles. Each one held a humanoid figure, only trifles now smaller than life-sized. Their faces and features held the stigmata of vampirism, and more than that, the likeness of particular vampires. They were breathing now, and the tone of their skin was beginning to approach the vampiric normal. Kaliya ran her hand gingerly over the shoulder of one, the first one she had begun. Darla, long the favored one of he who called himself only "The Master."
Kaliya turned to the mirror and watched as the confused throng made its way into the Chase mansion. "Soon," she muttered, to herself and to the unhearing forms about her.
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