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(This is original story written by Chris Kenworthy, based on the Buffy characters, who he does not own etcetera etcetara...)
He was right... Buffy had no great wish to slay this monstrosity, but she had a job to do here. Speak with respect and strength, Franco had told her. "I do not wish to kill you, honored Uzta, nor die before my time, but why should there be no other option??"
Uzta blinked, obviously rather inspired by both Buffy's term of respect and her boldness. "Lord Taraka decrees it so," he muttered sullenly. "The mark of vengeance is upon you, Buffy Anne Summers, and the hunters of Taraka may not rest until you are annihilated. So must it be - there is no other way."
"Then Mighty Lord Taraka thinks his followers are loyal to the level of insanity, and devoted to the point of suicide," Buffy shot back. "And so it is!!"
Uzta sneered. "You think you cannot be killed, little girl?"
"I have been before," Buffy told him with what she hoped was quiet confidence, "and even that did not stop me. I have faced the mightiest warriors in the Order of Taraka, and they have died without proper burial." With a little help from my friends, Buffy acknowledged silently. "In any event, the Fireking of Sunnydale has prophesied that I will meet Luke the Loyal in battle, and he shall cut me down. This has not yet happened, and a prophecy cannot be broken. Taraka can throw all of his hunters against me, but he cannot thwart Fate. In truth, I wonder if he cares about the lives of his people."
Uzta grinned, cunning showing around the edges of his reptilian mouth. "And what does Buffy Summers, the Vampire Slayer, offer instead?"
"An alliance," Buffy ground out from between clenched teeth. "You will never be safe from the vengeance of Taraka unless he and all his works are destroyed. I have my own reasons for wishing this. Let us work together towards that goal."
Uzta considered this for a moment. "I must consult with my allies."
"Good," Buffy agreed with a smile. "Can that be done this night?"
"That would depend," Uzta spat with a truly grotesque smile, "on how many allies you wish."
That stopped Buffy short. The more rogue Tarakans whose help, at the proper moment, they could count on, the greater their chances for victory would be. Yet this mission against the order of Taraka was but the first and easiest of three that Buffy had to complete, all before mid-December. How much time could she afford to spend here while other hunter demons converged on this area?
"Hsst! Buffy!!" The words were so quiet that Buffy couldn't be sure that she hadn't imagined them, but she realized that Marea was whispering to her. Buffy stepped close to the Italian Slayer.
"Do not let them stall you," Marea warned. "Uzta's confederates cannot be far from this area. They will be hiding together, hoping that the strenght of numbers will help protect them from Taraka's wrath, should worst come to worst. But if you give them too much time to talk amongst themselves, they will find a way to betray us too."
Buffy blinked in surprise. "Thank you," she whispered back. To Uzta she announced. "The friends you have in this area will have to be sufficient. Should we reach an agreement, we will be attacking the retreat at the second hour past midnight tomorrow night."
Uzta grinned cannily at her. "And if we cannot acheive an accord?"
Buffy sighed her best dramatic sigh. "Then we will have to go divide and conquer - hunt down and kill you and your allies, so that you will not be able to reinforce Lord Taraka's defenses, before we attack the retreat itself. It will slow us down, but that can't be helped."
The not-too-thickly veiled threat had it's desired effect. Uzta blanched, about as much as a Splicer could, Buffy imagined. "Come," he muttered, leading the way from the shack across and slightly down the mountain in a different way than they had come.
* * * *
Consciousness struck Xander none too kindly, and he groaned. The first thing he realized was that he was actually on a comfortable bed, which eliminated any possibility that he was in his room in the servant's quarters. "Where??" he managed to groan. He wonered if anyone was there to hear him.
"Xander?" He couldn't place the voice immediately. "You're at Resistance headquarters. How do you feel?"
"Rotten, lousy, and stinky," Xander replied. He did have a little more energy now than when he had first woken up, at least. But his head was one big ache and his body an only slightly milder one. "You shouldn't have brought me here. Too risky."
"We had to," Cordelia declared firmly from across the room. "I wasn't about to just take you back to your room and hope that you were really going to be okay. Only the witches here at the Resistance could tell for sure - or do anything to help you if you weren't."
"Michelle couldn't permanently damage me," Xander reminded Cordy, struggling up in the bed so he could get a good look at her. She was still wearing her provocative waitress outfit from the Bronze - all white, which had been the vampire's idea. White for the still-good, the still-human, for now, at least. Tight white miniskirt, white crop top, white leather boots, even a white ribbon in her hair. It was quite an incongrous look, but certainly attractive. "If she did, the Fireking would dust her in a second - you know that. And the vamps could have been watching you - trying to find the Resistance base. It was a bad risk to take." Still, Xander couldn't help but feel some gratitude to Cordy for looking out for him so fiercely.
"I can assure you that Cordelia, Mister Tojo, and my people took every precaution," Vanessa told Xander with a smile. "What's more, you've been here for several hours, and there's been no attack, which should put all of our minds at ease. Actually, I've been preparing for the three of you to make another visit here tonight anyways, and Michelle's attack gave us the perfect cover."
"Oh, okay," Xander said, struggling to concentrate through the headache. "What's business, then??" Xander did his best to grin, but guessed that it had come out more like a grimace.
"Not for you, friend," Vanessa told him with a sigh. "You're right in your guess that you haven't been permanently damaged, but that was a powerful charge of negative chi that Michelle sent into your system. You'll be feeling the aftereffects for another six hours or so, mostly in sieges. From the fact that you're talking to us, and trying to smile, I can tell that you're in the off cycle right now."
Xander gulped. "Uh-oh."
"Yeah," Vanessa said with an apologetic smile. "The last thing you'll want is to be trying to follow battle plans. I'll brief Cordelia and Tojo, and send Amy in to try to ease the pain with anaesthetic magic. In a few hours, your friends can come in and brief you, in case Buffy wants to know via Elysium."
"Elysium!" Xander said, pleased at the thought. Unfortunately, almost at that very moment he felt the blackness, and the pain, start to swell up. Vanessa hadn't been kidding about aftereffects.
He never noticed Vanessa, Cordelia, and Tojo leave the room, although they were gone the next time he was able to see through the darkness of the chi pain. The time after that, a pretty blonde was slipping through the door. "Hi, Xander, she said with far too much good cheer. "What can I do for you tonight?"
"Get... me... to... Elysium," Xander grunted. He could close his eyes, (in fact it was hard to do anything but keep them closed through the worst sieges,) but he couldn't concentrate enough through the pain to make the necessary mental transition.
Amy frowned. "Well, I'll try the best I can, and ease the pain too. How does that sound?"
* * * *
By the time Cordelia and Tojo came back, Xander was in considerably better shape. He had even managed to get to Elysium, but Buffy wasn't there. According to Giles, her team was probably still meeting with Splicers and rogue Tarakan hunters; Buffy and Willow weren't expected to check into Elysium much before sunrise, India time. So Xander had reluctantly let himself drift back to Earth. (The dark chi seemed to follow him whichever reality he was in - Amy said that it was an illness of the spirit, not the body.)
"The plans for the Resistance to assist Buffy in her solstice attack upon the Fireking are going as well as can be expected," Tojo told Xander gravely. "However, Vanessa's hopes for assisting the plight of the humans of Sunnydale is meeting with markedly less success."
"We're outpowered and outmagicked," Cordelia sighed. "If anyone steps in to try to save people from vampires, the Council of the Dead is going to know who it is at once. They'll track down the attacks to their origin and root out the Resistance - piece by piece or at a single stroke. It doesn't make any difference."
"Maybe not," Xander said, the weirdest idea possible taking shape in his mind. "What if they think it's not the resistance. We might be able to cover tracks then, mightn't we?"
That line brought a snort of surpressed laughter from Cordelia. "Who else would it be, if it wasn't us?"
Tojo looked narrowly at Xander. "What are you suggesting?"
"Well, what we need here in Sunnydale isn't an organized Resistance. What we need is a Slayer." Cordelia and Tojo were looking at Xander as if he had lost his mind. "Bear with me here - I know that both Buffy and Marea are stuck out of the Hellmouth and won't be able to get in here until the last scene. But... what if we made it look as if one of our own was a Slayer?"
Cordelia shook her head. "Who could possibly impersonate a Slay... No." Suddenly, she anticipated the conclusion. "No, Xander. I won't. I can't!"
"You have to, Cordelia. You *were* the Slayer. Only for two hours, I know, but you remember it, just like I remember being a soldier, right? Only a Slayer is going to put the fear of god back into these vamps. Plus, the council and the Fireking know better than any of us that the Slayers can't get in. I'd love to see how they try to explain reports of Slaying to their undead troops."
"You don't understand, Xander," Cordelia said, looking up into his eyes. "Just because I was the Slayer for a few hours, a year ago, doesn't mean I can just become one again. I know just how different they are from me, now - how brave, how strong, you have to be..."
"You just play your part, Cordy," Xander said comfortingly. "We'll be backing you up, we'll be brave and strong for you." But Cordelia shook her head again.
* * * *
The Slayers and company team hadn't gotten back to the vans until after the sun rose. The first thing that Buffy did was crawl into one of the beds in the RV, close her eyes, and wish herself into Elysium.
"Hey, Buffy," Xander called out instantly from the couch.
Despite the smile that crossed his face at Buffy's appearance, Xander did not look at all well, and as Buffy hurried over to him, she couldn't help but blurt out "Are you okay?"
"I'll be fine," Xander said with a nod, (which Buffy noticed was not exactly an answer to her question, though it did put her mind at ease.) "Vampire Michelle hit me with this kung fu 'chi' thing... non-physical pain. Hurt like limbo, but I'm through the worst of it now."
"Oh, no," Buffy said, her face falling as she sat down on a chair next to the sofa. More than anything, Buffy wanted to reach out to Xander, to comfort him, but she knew that as close as he seemed, she couldn't. Elysium didn't integrate living visitors well enough to let them touch - it was as if they were ghosts with respect to each other or the dead souls who lived in Elysium. "Why?? Was it because of me?!"
Xander considered, wanting to lie to Buffy, to spare her feelings, but he knew that he'd never get away with it anyways. "Kinduv," he hedged. "She has this weird lesbian obsession thing with you, Buffy. But I think it was also just about being to torment someone who stood against the Fireking's plans, at least in principle."
"Awww," Buffy said, smiling comfortingly at Xander, having realized by now that he was definitely her the truth - he was almost all better.
"So, how did the big pow-wows go, Buffy?" he asked, changing the subject.
"Pretty good," Buffy decided with a smile. "The renegade hunters - about ten of them, it seems, are willing to work with us... which we thought they would be, when the alternative to showing obvious co-operation was getting Slayed. There's a possibility that they're out to double-cross us, of course, but I'll kill that vamp if I come to it. For now, they've given us a first-hand description of the Tarakan retreat and its operations, which is pretty much consistent with Franco's own research."
"So, how are things looking, Buffy?" Jenny Calendar asked. "The defenses at the Tarakan headquarters and such."
"Well, they'll outnumber us, even with the rogues on our side," Buffy admitted. "But we'll have the advantage of surprise on our side, and a few special surprises up our sleeve. I think we've got a shot. More, I really can't say."
"You've faced long odds before, and won," Xander reminded her. "I'm not worried. Here in Sunnydale, on the other hand..."
"Why?" Buffy asked immediately. "What's going on?"
"The vamps are getting rowdier by the day - the more they get used to being in charge, the more the humans are suffering. I've got a pretty wild plan, but it's up to Cordelia and she's not going for it."
"I remember another wild plan of yours, Mister Rocket launcher," Buffy teased him. "So, what's the idea?"
"We make Cordelia into a Slayer."
There was silence in Giles' living room for a moment. Then Rupert spoke up, "I know that we've arranged to bring a new Slayer onto the scene before, but I hardly think it is the kind of endeavour that can, or should, be repeated..."
"Not really make her a Slayer," Xander said with an aggrieved sigh. "But make the vampires think that, so they get scared that there's a Slayer in town."
"Hmm..." Buffy thought about that. "Might work. Cordy had the Slayer spirit that one time - she'll remember the basic drill. The witches can help increase her strength and co-ordination, and Tojo can teach her..."
Just then, Willow popped in. "Buffy! There you are. It's arrived!!"
"What is it?" Xander asked.
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