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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...) |
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"...I'm feeling quite tired and worn out, to tell the truth."
"Perhaps you should go back to your room, in the other house. Willow?"
"Yeah, sure... I'll make sure he gets there safely."
Perfect! Michelle quickly dashed back to where the others were waiting. She handed one of the tiny garnets to Rancid. "When this flashes, I need your help - yours and Gennors. Get into the house any way you can and fight the Slayer's allies." She turned to the Ganges brothers and Larry. "When they go in, you stay out and guard the porch. Let no-one in or out except for us." All nodded at her. Michelle couldn't quite hide her smile - taking command was fun!
She crept back towards the house, digging the glass sphere and her trusty bloodstake from her weapons bag, which she dropped on the other side of the Chase driveway. The iron 'bloodstake' went up her sleeve, while she held the sphere in her hands as she waited...
In only a few moments, the door opened, and Angel and the Rosenberg girl came out. Michelle focused intently on Rosenberg, and the glass sphere shattered silently in her hands. Exactly as it was supposed to.
Now she was ready, except that the timing was wrong. No-one would be expecting Rosenberg to be back this quickly. Michelle forced herself to wait a few minutes before coming up to the porch. Confidently, again not daring to show her nervousness, she rang at the doorbell.
Harris opened the door. "Oh, hi Will. Why didn't you just come in?"
Oh. "Uh, I didn't remember to take the key with me."
"It was unlocked."
Michelle smiled meekly, imitating a mannerism she had noticed of Rosenberg, trying to hide the fact that she still couldn't pass the threshold.
"Well, come in already, huh?"
Now Michelle grinned more widely as she stepped into the house.
* * * *
"Hey, thanks. I can take it from here," Angel said as they walked into the front hall of the Rosenberg house.
"Uh, I don't think so," Willow said, suppressing a naughty smile. "I promised to see you safely back into your room, and nothing else will do."
Angel smiled uncertainly back at her. "You know that they need your help with Cordelia and Buffy."
"That can wait..."
"I'm not so sure. There's something unnatural about that. The Slayer spirit needs to get transpossessed back into Buffy, and soon. Before something disastrous happens."
"Maybe," Willow allowed. "But right now I'm helping you, mister." She gestured him towards the stairs. "Come on."
They made their way back up the stairs. "So, it does seem that you are pregnant. Have you thought about what you're gonna do about it?"
Angel smirked. "You mean, have the baby or get an abortion? Raise the child myself or put it up for adoption?" He chuckled in disbelief.
Willow tittered too. "Well, uh, yeah... more the first question."
"I don't know. This is too weird a situation for any answers. I mean, I don't think we know enough about this situation to know if it would be possible to abort this baby, never mind whether it's the right thing to do. At least getting knocked up can't ruin my life." Angel waved his eyebrows to indicate he was joking.
"Well, here we are."
"Thank you, Willow," Angel said. Willow opened her mouth to make a reply, but Angel cut her off. "Not just for the walk home. For caring. For making all of this a little easier."
Willow blushed and giggled. "Uh, you're welcome."
* * * *
"Michelle!" Giles bellowed. "Where has that dratted girl got to now?" he whispered to himself. Not knowing where else to look, he strode off towards the common room.
"Has anyone here seen Michelle?" he asked the room in general.
Several vamps looked at him in utter confusion. "She, um, she has led a party outside," a vamp told him soberly. "They left an hour ago."
"What? Who with?"
"Rancid, Gennor, the Ganges, and one of the newly changed. Larry?"
"On whose authority?"
"Kaliya's, she said."
Giles scowled at him. "And no-one thought to verify that? Our lady ordered no such action. I have been with her all day." The face of the other vampire, (Giles couldn't for the undeath of him remember this particular henchvamp's name,) fell.
"The Slayer," Giles muttered to himself. "You, come with me. The rest of you, tighten security, and someone let Kaliya know what has happened, and that we go to fetch Michelle back before she commits treachery by making the kill that is reserved for her liege lady." He pointed at one of the newly changed, who gulped and got up to deliver the message.
* * * *
"Ah, good to see you, Willow," The Giles-ghost said as Michelle came into the living room. "You were telling me earlier today, about an entry in the Gavinec Codex relating to catalyzed transpossession." He gestured to a heavy book on the coffee table. "Oz was able to find Akira Tojo's copy in his room. Would you be able to find that reference for us?"
Michelle froze inside. So soon, she was being asked for the impossible. Well, there was nothing at all for it but to make the attempt and manufacture some excuse. Still, she felt as if her cover was melting away already.
"I'm not quite sure where it was," she muttered in her best attempt at California American English, as she sat down on the couch and hauled the huge volume onto her lap. "And it's a very big book."
"Come on, Will, you've got like the photographic memory," a young man reassured her. Rosenberg's boyfriend, the one referred to only as 'Oz.' Photographic memory. Oh, great.
Michelle continued to flip through the book, pretending to try to find her place. "Where's Buffy?" she asked conversationally.
"Lying down in the first-floor bedroom," Xander said, tilting his head towards the rear of the house. "The transpossession thing seems to have really taken a lot out of her."
"I'm sure," Michelle agreed. It would take more out of her yet, she vowed...
* * * *
"What happened to you out there?" Darrell asked Cordelia, as he and some of the other witches tried other strange magical tests to try and figure out how Cordy had gotten the Slayer spirit and how to return it.
"Uh, what do you mean?" Cordelia asked back, smiling just a little at the cute warlock.
"When you seemed to lose your bearings there for a few seconds. That hellhound nearly had you."
"Until Xander," Cordelia agreed. "I'm not sure - it's like the strength just left me for a second."
"I'm not surprised," Vanessa cut in. "You've got the Slayer powers, for now at least, Cordelia, but you're not to the manner born, so to speak. You're not meant to be a Slayer, and your body can't take it. I'd say that paroxysms like that one are going to get more numerous with time, and worse the more you use the Slayer strength. Until we can get a reverse transpossession organized, that is."
Suddenly, they could hear raised voices downstairs. "What's going on now?" Vanessa wondered out loud.
* * * *
"Hi guys," Buffy Summers said as she walked listlessly into the living room.
"Hi, honey," Xander said, jumping up to greet her. "How are you feeling?"
"Still... weak." The Slayer (or ex-Slayer?) maneuvered her dispirited way to a comfortable chair and flopped down into it. "How're things going with the transpossession?"
"Not good," Michelle volunteered. "I can't seem to remember where that passage was, Giles."
"It's okay, Willow," Giles assured her. "I think we may be able to effect a counterspell without..."
Giles kept talking, but Michelle's attention was elsewhere. The hear-ring, (she wondered idly if the others saw Willow wearing it or not,) was picking up something new - footsteps climbing up the porch stairs. More than likely, that was the real Willow Rosenberg returning.
Michelle put the book aside quickly, stood up, reached into the small pocket in her short skirt, squeezing the tiny garnet quickly with her thumb and index finger. Then she quickly crossed over to where Summers was sitting, bringing the bloodstake out of her sleeve as she reached her.
Tired as she was, Summers wasn't taken off guard. She snapped to attention and kicked out with her right foot, aiming for Michelle's leg.
The blow connected, as Michelle couldn't help but laugh at how little force it had. If the mighty Slayer of Sunnydale had been reduced to that, Michelle's mission would be even easier than she had thought.
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