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(This is original story written by Chris Kenworthy, based on the Buffy characters, who he does not own etcetera etcetara...)
"Uh, yes," Franco Belone agreed uncertainly. "The poverty and harshness of this region is not much apparent at present." The group was camped at the foot of Reyer's mountain, waiting as evening slipped into night. When midnight drew near, they'd head up to Uzta's shack. Right now, the camping tents were packed away into their cars, (a van and a recreational utility vehicle, actually,) but the six of them were sitting around a campfire and trying to relax.
A hound dog trotted around the fire, coming up and rubbing himself against Buffy's hand. "Oh, hi Talbott," Buffy said with a smile. Talbott was considerably more than he seemed - he was the guide and partner of the Demon Hunters - Lora Theron's family line. Over nine generations, Talbott had not changed a bit. But he was a very likeable dog as well - if you didn't happen to be a demon.
"So," Lora said, "Buffy. Even if we manage to get the co-operation of this Uzta and his cronies, how are we going to get to the Retreat of the Order of Taraka?? That has to be one of the best-guarded buildings on the mortal globe. Or are you going to have Uzta and his people smuggle us in?"
"Not likely," Buffy shot back with a smile. Lora was a good ally, but for some reason Buffy just couldn't stop herself from baiting the other girl. Probably it was still about that night that Buffy had discovered partly-unclothed Lora and Xander in a tent together... "Fear of me, and of course you guys too, is my biggest bargaining chip with the Tarakan discontents. I'm not about to give them a chance to throw me off a cliff or otherwise assasinate me. No, we've got another plan for initially storming the Retreat. One I doubt that Mister Taraka will be expecting." Buffy chuckled at the thought.
Lora looked like she was first considering asking Buffy for more details, then thinking better of it.
"So, who should be doing the talking with Uzta?" Angel asked out loud. "Buffy? She's the one with the reputation to bank on, after all. But she doesn't know Urdu... what language does Uzta speak??" Angel trailed out amidst his own questions.
"He speaks half the languages of Asia and Europe," Marea offered. "Including English. It should be appropriate for Buffy to address him, so long as she shows the proper combination of respect and strong will..."
* * * *
Xander was in the kitchen when Michelle's forboding announcement rang through the entire Bronze, and a cold wash of fear ran down his back.
"Come for Harris??" That voice was Cordelia's, trying to appear authorative and subserviant at the same time. "But... but surely as any vampire as loyal and, uh, elevated as a member of the Council will remember..."
"Harris is under the protection of the Fireking himself," the vampire Favored in charge of the Bronze stated plainly out loud, as Cordelia herself could not. "Chase too. Even you cannot..."
"What I can and cannot do is between myself and the Fireking," Michelle asserted firmly, "and he has approved this endeavour with all of his heart. I will brook no more delays. Bring him here!!"
"But... you can't..." Cordy honestly sounded like she was on the verge of doing something incredibly stupid to protect Xander - like attacking Michelle herself. Verging on suicidal at the best of times for one not well trained in combat, an assault like that would be even worse in the middle of a club full of vampires who, for all that they resented the leadership of the Council of the Dead, would not hesitate to tear apart a human who had dared to attack a vampire overlord. So Xander hurried quickly out of the kitchen corridors and into the Bronze's main area.
"What do you want of me?" he asked Michelle, doing his best to sound defiant without delivering actual insolence.
With only the tiniest of motions, an aisle appeared between Michelle and Xander, and a clearing developed around the place where he was standing. All eyes were fixed on one or both of them as Michelle walked up to the human servitor. "Buffy," she announced. "The Slayer. The one who dared to insult and mock me."
"Uh, y-yeah..." Xander started, trying to control a nervous stutter. "She does that to a lot of vampires. You can't take it personally..."
"The one girl," Michelle hissed softly, her lips suddenly only an inch from Xander's ear, "in all creation who I want... and cannot have."
"What?" Xander murmured, lowering his voice in much the same way that the vampire had, for no straightforward reason he could name. "Never had a pin-up fantasy before? What about, umm..." he racked his brain for a second. "Alyssa Milano? Nothin' wrong with that!"
Michelle smirked at him, considering for a second. "I could take her," she told him softly. "It would take a bit of planning, but I could make her a vampire if I wanted to! Buffy, on the other hand..." she sighed. "I cannot overwhelm her with my strength, for hers is greater. And I cannot use the kiss of death on her, for she cannot die until she meets Luke in battle."
"Uh, yeah," Xander said, trying not to flinch at the reference to a prophecy that suggested Luke would kill Buffy. "None of you vamps can ever take Buffy on. But... what does this have to do with me??"
"Well, Buffy loves you," Michelle replied matter-of-factly. "And you love her."
"How..." Xander started, then caught himself. "What makes you think that?"
"It is not difficult to see," Michelle said. "And I believe that somehow the two of you are in contact, even though you cannot leave the Hellmouth and she cannot enter. In any event, whether she knows immediately or not, to hurt you will attract Buffy's attention."
"H-hurt me?" Xander stammered again. "You... you can't hurt me. The Fireking would never have allowed that..."
"I can't endanger your life, or seriously maim you," Michelle said with a little pout. "But I can cause you pain." She favored him with a twisted smile. "The probability magic of the Fireking is truly a remarkable thing. I vividly remember the life history of this body, which my king had brought me from a completely different timeline. I have learned techniques that I was never truly taught."
She smirked. "He tells me that you are responsible for that alternate timeline, Xander - that in a trip to the distant past, you attempted to interfere with history and keep my Queen Kaliya from embracing me as a vampire." She chuckled. "When the timeline collapsed, you probably thought no more about it. But, you see, Kaliya's trap failed when my mortal previous, Michelle LeBlanc, was sixteen... but that only meant that Kaliya could make another try, and make me a vampire at age twenty-four. I was at the height of my mortal physical condition when I became a vampire, and stronger of mind and will. I served Kaliya loyally, but I was independent enough to seek out training in the most elusive and powerful of the combat arts."
Uh-oh, Xander thought vaguely. He remembered the occasion on which he had been sent into the past, and warned a Watcher that Michelle LeBlanc would be turned into a vampire, in a timeline that had collapsed. But he hadn't realized that it could have made Michelle so much more dangerous...
"Like the 'Snake style' of chinese Kung Fu," Michelle continued inexorably. "Divesting themselves of the need to cause physical pain and injury, the Snake Masters I studied with have perfected devastating ways of delivering dark chi into a living body. With a touch as soft as that of a feather, for instance.
With that cruel smile again, Michelle lifted her hand, a single finger outstretched, moving towards his face. Xander flinched away, but realized with a sickening feeling that there was nowhere to run to. Just as she had said, Michelle stroked her finger ever so softly against Xander's cheek, as light as an idle breeze. Under other circumstances, it might have been mistaken for a lover's caress.
And Xander gasped as... as something malignant flowed into his body. There was pain, agonizing pain... but that wasn't even close to the worst of it. Whatever it was... this dark chi or whatever... it seemed to be at war with everything that was good and healthy inside of Xander. His blood balked at flowing, his muscles shook rather than bearing weight, and his lungs threatened to stop taking in air.
Blackness rushed up and took Xander in.
* * * *
As midnight approached, Buffy was worried that they wouldn't find Uzta's shack. Their 'informants' back at the midnight room hadn't informed Lora about everything. For one thing, they couldn't get very far up Reyer's mountain by car - the rough ground and lack of roads had stimied even the RUV. And by foot, there was a lot of ground to cover that was 'about halfway up the southern face' of the mountain, under very dangerous conditions.
"If we're having this much difficulty here, how much trouble are we gonna have... you know." Willow pointed vaguely to the north, where the true giants of the Himalayan mountains rose from the once-volcanic regions of Nepal and Tibet, and where the most reliable references said that the Command Retreat of the Order of Taraka was hidden. Compared to those mounts, Reyer's was only a moderately high foothill.
"Danger has very little to do with height," Lora Theron reminded Willow, as she helped the student watcher scramble up a nasty slope. "Reyer's is forbidding because of the savage way its rocks have been broken by the storms, not because of its elevation."
"The elevation doesn't hurt," Buffy said, deliberately casting a glance down in her enthusiasm to disagree with Lora. "And we've made preparations for when we really get up into the Himalayas themselves," she said, indicating herself, Angel, and Franco, who had been the ones to plan those preparations. There hadn't been any need to involved the others yet.
"I have found it!" Marea exclaimed in a loud whisper, hurrying back towards the rest of the group from forward-scout duty. Somehow the quiet little Italian girl had been the best of all of them at making her way over the rocks and crags of the mountain - well, among the best. Buffy realized that Angel and Lora were doing pretty well too, but wanted to stay with the rest of the group.
It took Buffy a second to actually register what Marea had said. "The shack?! Where is it??"
"Half a mile, ahead and bearing somewhat to the left," the other Slayer reported, falling in with the rest of the team.
"Great!" Buffy enthused, checking her watch - and almost falling as a wave of sadness seemed to crash down upon her. The watch had been a gift from Xander - purchased as a romantic whim at the airport gift shop in London... oh, so many miles away. The Slayer shook back to herself and her mission. She'd finish this mission and find her way back to Xander. There was no other possibility.
Willow was staring somewhat curiously at Buffy, her still-short red-gold hair losing most of its color in the dim night-light. "Uh, we shouldn't be too late," Buffy announced somewhat lamely. "If we keep the pace up."
They made their way along in silence for a little while after that, using the flashlights carefully to mark their way, or each other's way, when needed. "So," Angel muttered as he helped Franco over a rough patch. "I've always wondered... how do you Watchers know, uh, when to Watch. I mean, how did you decide that it was your place to watch Marea?"
"Well," the older man muttered as he climbed, "we didn't know at the time that there was to be a new Slayer after Kendra... Buffy still being alive, the situation was more than a little confusing, as you might imagine. The signs that there might be a new Slayer called in Europe came to me, and so I was the one to investigate the possibility. And when I had found Marea and verified that she was a called Slayer, it was clear that we were compatible, and Marea had a dream that indicated that she should draw her attention to the Tarakans. Since the Order is my field of specialty, we made it a definite 'thing.'"
"So, you got dreams about what you were supposed to do as a Slayer?" Buffy asked Marea, pouting a little. "Big picture? Damn. All I ever got were presentiments of danger and dying."
"We have had very different roles to play," Marea reminded Buffy. "Quiet. Lights out. The hut is just ahead."
Franco shot his Slayer a disappointed look. "'Quiet? Lights out??' Do we not want Uzta to know that we are approaching, my child?"
"Oh," Marea said, flushing in embarassment. "I am sorry... it has just become such second nature..."
"Nothing should become second nature to the point," Franco lectured her, "where it is applied in defiance to good sense. Where is the building located, my child?"
Marea pointed, and Franco deliberately played his flashlight over the area. "Announce our presence, Buffy," he whispered.
"Uzta!!" Buffy called out as loudly as she could. "The vampire Slayers and their allies have come to talk with you, under truce!!"
A figure stumbled forward into the electric torchlight. He was about seven feet tall, and as broad in proportion as a fairly strong man would me. His head seemed vaguely lizardlike, his hands canine claws, and he had a sharp, coling tail that moved about with the eerie sense that it was under extremely detailed muscular control. Buffy had seen more horrific-looking demons, but there was an added horror factor from the knowledge that part of this creature, at least, had once been very human. "Why should I trust truce with Slayers??" he spat.
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