[X] She didn't want to take chances with people's lives, even small ones. "Your doctor can check them out, but nobody and nothing leaves the station."
"Not good enough," Faith said.
"Says who, you?" Buffy shot back. She should be thankful for this much. "It's what you're getting. If you don't like it, leave. I'm sure Maggie will really appreciate your moral stand."
"Do you really get off this much on being a bitch or is it just that you're keeping that fucking hammer shoved up your-"
"It's adequate," the doctor interrupted forcefully. "We're wasting even more valuable time than we already have."
"Good. Just you and him." Buffy turned to lead them downstairs.
"I get to come too? I'm flattered," Faith said sarcastically.
"Like I'd leave you alone up here," Buffy said.
"Hey, what am I? Chopped liver?" Forrest complained.
"Basically," Harmony said. "Faith's lame and you're even lamer."
"Faith's got more slick in her little finger than blondie does in her whole body!"
"You know my slayer could beat up your slayer!"
The argument kicked up behind them, but Buffy kept going, just wanting to get this over with. Letting them through at all hadn't been in the plan, but a little part of her worried the doctor was right to be concerned. Neither the Mycos or the caveman beer had exactly gone through an FDA review, even if the proponents of both were confident in theory.
As they got down the stairs, the sounds of a slightly less sophisticated argument were heard, drifting up from below.
"You dumb!"
"No, you dumb!"
The small block of cells in the basement was pretty full, with two cops down here to supervise the situation and looking moderately surprised at the change in plans in their understated policeman way. She gave them a slight nod of reassurance.
As for the cells themselves, there were two of them on one side holding four cavemen each; one with the Initiative's victims and the other with some otherwise normal college students. The calming effect of the Mycos had seemingly worn off by now, and both groups were behaving rambunctiously. Luckily, neither group was prone to infighting, and they weren't strong enough to bend the steel bars, so everything was relatively contained.
One of the cells on the other side held both Jack the bar owner and a random fifteen year-old who'd been out vandalizing a vacant building. The kid was apparently too new to town to have absorbed by osmosis the dangers of wandering around at night, and the cops had brought him in for his own safety as much as anything else.
His parents hadn't picked up the phone, and the police hadn't wanted to dig into the situation any further until morning. Hopefully seeing all this happen tonight would scare him straight. Keeping him buddy-buddy with Jack wasn't the best, but it was better than the other options.
Ethan Rayne was alone in the last cell, looking all too amused by the proceedings. "The queen herself! And you've brought me some visitors this time!"
"Not yours," They really needed more jail cells, or holding locations or whatever. Something to talk to Xander and Chief Matt about.
"You more dumb!"
"I'll be the judge of who I'm a visitor of," Faith disagreed. "Who the heck are you?"
"I'm but a simple warlock, imprisoned for the crime of saving the city from a giant owl," he opined.
"You dumber!"
Buffy could only deal with so many nuisances at once. "Both of you, shut up!" she snapped at the two cavemen arguing through the bars.
To her surprise, and that of the suddenly quiet room, they did, looking back at her owlishly. But not at her eyes, at- oh, she was holding her hammer now.
"Fascinating," the doctor said. She wasn't thrilled that he was going to call more attention to her teleporting hammer, but luckily his attention was captured by the cavemen instead. "It's highly unlikely someone of your build would intimidate them; they might remember your position of authority, despite their condition. Did you participate in apprehending any of them?"
"Umm, not directly," she answered, caught a little off guard. "I saw Graham?"
He turned his attention to the guy in question. "Agent Miller, do you recognize me?"
"Doc." He said definitively through the bars.
"Doc Angle!" one of his friends added boisterously.
"Way I hear it, it was B doing a backflip off a spaceship that killed the owl." Faith said to Ethan, distracting Buffy from the doctor's evaluations.
"And where would she have been without her trusty steed?" he replied.
Her eyes lit up. "Make me one? I could break ya outta this joint."
"You don't want him," Buffy said. "And as much as I'd like to see him turn your whole base literally upside down, it wouldn't be worth the headache of cleaning it up after."
Ethan tsked. "Miss Mayor, while I do admit the majority of our shared experiences have been negative-"
"You tattooed me and then tried to feed me to a demon."
Faith's eyes lit up, "Can I see?"
"No!" Buffy said immediately. "I mean, it's gone. Removed. Not important." She'd known this was a bad idea.
"While the majority of our shared experiences have been negative," he repeated, "I am perfectly capable of working with others toward a shared goal. Your predecessor, for instance."
"Yes, you helped him sacrifice babies," Buffy rolled her eyes. "My opinion of your new boss isn't high, Faith, but somehow I don't think that's her speed."
Faith appeared to consider, "Well, I'm not saying Professor Walsh would trade a baby for a spaceship straight up, but she really wants one of those spaceships."
"He can't even do another spaceship," Buffy complained. "He does chaos magic. It's even less predictable than regular magic, it's practically a lottery every time."
"I wouldn't exactly say that," Ethan grumped. "It's possible that with the right tapestry of circumstances to work with-"
"You could cause tons of damage and piss off a bunch more people," Buffy finished for him.
"Maybe I'm changing my ways," he argued. "My conversations with CyberWillow on the subject of philosophy have been quite illuminating."
"Ethan has been very receptive to more ordered forms of chaos," CyberWillow's echoing voice agreed.
'Doc Angle' mercifully and obliviously cut into the conversation, "The psychedelics don't appear to still be in effect, though it's hard to be certain. Was there a change in behavior at some point?"
The two officers gave Buffy another look, not sure if they should answer, but she nodded again.
"The last of 'em got brought in at what, 12:30?" One said.
"Yeah," the other said.
"They stopped with the druggie act pretty quick after that and got to arguing and thumping around. Probably wasn't another half hour," the first continued.
"That was even funnier than this part," Jack the bartender said. Sensing some hostile eyes, he added, "Or not. You could also take the opinion this is very serious, and not funny at all."
"Come on, stand by your principles," Ethan encouraged. "This wasn't a bad first effort, you should be proud of yourself."
"I'll be proud when the people who can yank my liquor license say I should be," he said.
"Way to sell out, dude," the kid in the cell added.
"Stop being a bad example!" Buffy pointed at Ethan. He raised his hands innocently and was quiet.
"I'd still like a sample of the biochemical you used," the doctor said.
"Nope." Buffy put her foot down. "You've got the patients, deal with it." She didn't trust the Initiative not to copy it somehow if they got their hands on it.
He made an annoyed noise. "I'll take some blood then. Faith, can you help me with this other group? They aren't being as cooperative."
"I'll do it," Buffy shoved past the other slayer. "She's not known for being gentle." She didn't want any of the college students waking up with a broken arm.
Surprisingly, the obedience the cavemen had shown her earlier was sticking, and she didn't even have to go into the cell to get them to stick their arms out through the bars. There was a little hooting and hollering about the needle itself, but she was so much stronger that it was easy to just hold their arms steady when they got scared.
"I can't detect any adverse reaction so far," the doctor seemed almost disappointed to say. "Is this largely the behavior you expected?" he directed at Jack.
"After the drugs? More or less." He answered, "My brother-in-law didn't really give a lot of details or anything. Kinda thought they'd be wilder, really."
"Not surprised," Faith snorted. "She's got the whole city walking on pins and needles around her, cave-people included."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Buffy said.
"You think all of them out there actually like you? Hell, you think these cops even really like you? They're afraid."
Buffy was about to fire back, but stopped. Harmony had made a similar comment not too long ago, albeit in a nicer way. It sat worse in her head now, hearing it like this.
Faith kept bulling on, "And that's how Professor Walsh is different. She isn't afraid of you. You can't just tell her to eat shit and have her do it with a smile."
"Won't bother me if she's frowning," she said. "Speaking of, we're done here. You got to check out your people, let's go."
------------------------------------------------------------------
She tried to feel chipper as she walked around to Crawford street's backyard, but the hour made it difficult. One PM on a Sunday had seemed reasonable when she'd agreed to it, but everything with the cavemen and the Initiative last night had left her hyped up and needing to work off some energy.
And that had been fun. Very fun. But Harmony wasn't exactly one for restraint, so it had been morning by the time they finished, predictably leading to a lack of sleep. But one thing or another had put this off for way too long already, and she wasn't going to cancel last minute. Training was important, after all.
"Buffy, you've finally arrived!" Mary Snow was pretty jovial for one of the Watcher Tribe, but she really did like her training sessions. "My girls are fit and ready to go!"
Rachel and Zoe looked less excited about the event than Mary, but that wasn't saying much. Buffy regretted that she hadn't had more time for the potentials, and hoped they didn't see her as aloof and uncool. Maybe the Watchers' Council had slimier motives in bringing them here, but it wasn't their fault, and Xander had told her they'd been rolling with the hellmouth punches pretty well.
"Sounds great," she said awkwardly. "So were we going to do some sparring first?"
"Yes!" Rachel agreed hastily.
"She hasn't been waiting a month for this or anything," Zoe said casually.
Mary clucked and Rachel groaned in response. "You know It's bad form to start without proper stretching. Now let's get to it, up! And down!"
Buffy put on a smile and stepped alongside them. She privately thought that a random demon wasn't going to wait for stretches, but then again, she was the Slayer (and a little bit more, she privately admitted to herself.) It's not like she was at risk for spraining anything.
"So how did it go last night?" Rachel asked from beside her. She was definitely the more boisterous of the two potentials. "Did Faith cry?"
"No, but she was definitely off her game," Buffy said, not entirely truthfully. "Her eyes may have even been misty."
"I wish I could've been there," Rachel said. "It's not like it was even a schoolnight, bedtimes are for little girls."
"It's a schoolnight tonight," Mary said disapprovingly. "And I know I would be getting all sorts of spurious complaints tomorrow if you'd stayed awake into the early hours last night. Always begin-"
"As you mean to finish," Both potentials completed the phrase dejectedly. Rachel grumbled afterward, more quietly, "Slayers don't need to be in bed by one."
"My mom wouldn't have agreed with you," Buffy snarked back.
"Not swayed by the 'sacred duty' argument?" Zoe asked.
"Definitely not when she didn't know. After she knew? Also not really, though at least I could have Giles fight her over it instead of doing it myself all the time." Not that he always won.
"How did you do everything then?" Rachel was pretty surprised. "Keeping the vampires under control-"
"- and everything else," Zoe finished.
"I snuck out a lot," Buffy said boldly. "And snuck in a lot. I got more jumping practice with that than I ever did with Giles."
"I'd say we're all feeling a bit more limber now, aren't we?" Mary called out. "Now, as for rules-"
"Just come at me with everything you've got," Buffy turned to Rachel. "I'll be gentle."
She got the most adorably annoyed look on her face and jumped in, full of aggression and barely defending herself. She made an effort to stay at human speed, but it was still child's play to slip around her and send her tumbling with a slight push to the shoulder.
"Come now Rachel, you're better than that," Mary said.
"I'd like to see it," Buffy commented, and Rachel came at her again, a little cleaner than before.
Still, her attacks were telegraphed. Buffy made a game out of dodging as slowly as she could and moving as minimally as possible. Rachel on the other hand was putting a lot of heft behind her attacks. In a way, it made sense; she'd need to hit with all her strength to make an impact on demons or vampires, much less herself. Still, it was a little disappointing overall. She'd hoped for better.
Maybe unarmed wasn't really her thing. Which made sense, really. "Where's that favorite axe you have? Get that out."
"I'd thought we would work on weapon skills later in the day," Mary said.
"She shouldn't be fighting most things unarmed anyway," Buffy disagreed. "I want to see her at her best."
"You got it then," Rachel said, sounding a little surly.
"Are you gonna use anything?" Zoe asked.
"Nah, this'll be fine," Buffy said. Most demons went unarmed, after all.
Rachel came at her again with a tomahawk in her right hand and a stake in the other. It was definitely an improvement. She kept to mostly normal-person speed and there were a couple times it'd be more inconvenient to dodge, so she slapped at the flat of the blade or pushed on Rachel's forearms to make space.
Everything still felt a little predictable, but she realized that might be an effect of the deeper connection to her instincts she'd gotten; Rachel might sorta be cribbing off the same playbook. Looking at it objectively, she was better than Xander, which was probably saying something, really. But there was still ground to make up if she wanted to be effective fighting on her own, and not in a bigger group.
Buffy tapped Rachel's left elbow to foul the motion with her stake, then snatched it out of her hand and used the butt end to rattle the tomahawk just the wrong way as she lightly swooped her leg around for a trip. Rachel managed to jump and dodge, but lost her grip on the weapon and then Buffy had that too. She looked annoyed, but Buffy ignored it in favor of inspecting the weapons for herself.
"I've never seen anyone use these like this before, let me try it out for a sec," she said, then turned and swiped at the air, full speed, seeing what kind of combinations leapt out at her.
KILL
"It's different seeing it up close," Zoe said in a small voice.
Most of it wouldn't be useful, the dynamics were too different, but that one part; she repeated a specific motion a couple times.
"Watch this," she started demonstrating on Rachel, doing it ludicrously slowly to make the point. The idea was that the right slashing motion with the tomahawk followed by the action crossing back with it led their center of mass right onto where it was natural to put the stake. Rachel managed to fall for it the first time despite the low speed, and then looked both irritated and intrigued.
"You try," she said, handing her weapons back.
Rachel did, and didn't get it quite right; the stake was coming in wrong. Maybe it was her height? She was a lot taller than Buffy. She could try to fix it on the fly. "Zoe, come over and make like a guinea vampire."
She mimed her index fingers by her mouth. "Wait, do guinea vampires even have fangs?"
"Yep," Buffy popped the 'p', "Definitely." She was more in her element now.
"Do be careful," Mary said.
"They'll be fine," Buffy said. Then she got behind Rachel and arranged her arms manually. "Yeah, you want the stake like this, a little loose, so it's not drawing attention. Then here, and here, there we go! Let's do it again!"
Buffy finally pushed her to make the attack at full speed and the stake kind of went flying for Zoe's heart, but Buffy just yoinked it right before the impact. "There, you really are a natural with these."
Buffy played with Rachel some more, taking her in a couple different directions after that, but there was only so much you could teach someone at once before it all blurred together. That used to happen sometimes with Giles, or even with Merrick, back before her Slayer instincts got their new highway built into her brain.
"OK Zoe, you're up. Do you have a special little something-something?" Rachel was already tall and skinny, but this girl looked like she might blow over in a stiff wind. Unarmed was not gonna be her style of choice.
"I usually use a crossbow?" Her words sounded as much like a question as an answer. "Or a stake, I guess."
"We should save archery for later," Mary directed. "Go on, try to mix it up a little! It's in your heritage."
Zoe got the stake out of her waistband and waited hesitantly, but after Buffy nodded and encouraged her she lunged at her, looking like she didn't believe she'd actually connect. It was worse even than Rachel's first effort, but Buffy didn't put her on the ground for it, she just dodged around and told her to keep coming.
Despite what'd been implied, Potentials really didn't seem to be that special at fighting by default, and she retroactively kicked her opinion of Rachel up a few notches. It made sense; it wasn't like she'd been some great Kung-Fu prodigy before she was called, but then again, she'd never really tried. These two were in this big intense training program or whatever, and she'd let herself fall the hype a little bit.
Which isn't to say Zoe was terrible, exactly; with a stake she was probably better than most people on the Watch. But if Rachel's snappy fighting style was at the point where Buffy might eventually have some confidence in her working alone, Zoe had farther to go and she wasn't sure how to get her there. Maybe something more unique would help, like Rachel's weapon combo.
Buffy shared her thought, not bothering to stop the fight and still slowly dodging around as she did, "Have you ever tried anything different? Maybe something swordy or clubby? Possibly whippy?"
"You should try more of the greatsword," Mary kibbitzed. "You were making a good show of it, what was it, three months ago?"
"Oh, yeah," Zoe said, not seeming as enthusiastic. "They're kind of bulky to carry around though."
"Something else?" Buffy could tell she was conflicted somehow. "Don't worry, I'm not exactly in a position to mock your preferences."
Rachel's eyes bugged out a little at the joke, and Mary made a disapproving face.
It seemed to get Zoe over the hill though. Her attacks slowed to a snail's pace, still sparring more out of momentum than anything. "Well, you know how a lot of people on the Watch use magic? I looked at some books, and I think maybe I could try to get good at that."
"Combat magic isn't practical at a beginner level, Zoe," Mary said condescendingly. That didn't seem very accurate to Buffy, but Zoe surprisingly answered before she could.
"It can be though!" she argued, turning her full attention to Mary. For the first time today, she looked confident. "I was talking to Andrew, and he said Jonathan had barely touched a spellbook before June. He can really fight! Already!"
"Their methods may show quick results, but they have other costs," Mary said. "Magic like that isn't safe."
"I found something called a Scáthach Channel when I was researching," Zoe said. "It might work really well, because I'm a Potential, and it didn't look like it needed anything terrible."
"I happen to know who Scáthach was," Mary replied. "Would you like to hear how many villages she razed? How many children she killed?"
"But whatever she did doesn't make her spell bad!" Zoe said. "Andrew said that it's what you do with the magic that matters, not where it came from."
"Andrew Wells is even younger than you and hasn't the sense God gave a flea," Mary said, aggravation breaking through her resolve.
"Excuse you?" Buffy snapped. "He's accomplished a hell of a lot more than you have since you got here."
Mary put her hand on her face, closing her eyes for a second. "I mean no offense. I understand the exigencies required by the fight. But the boy is a demon summoner. I won't argue that you're getting some use out of him, but that is not the sort of future I want for my girls. Dark magic leaves a stain on your soul."
"You've said yourself that some Potentials join the Devon coven when they age out," Zoe argued. "My mystical clock's ticking. This'll get me ready!"
"The proper way of doing magic, the way of the Devon coven, involves years of study and discipline. It's based on the highest respect for the natural order, not the urge for a quick fix." Mary sighed, then continued. "I'm not saying you shouldn't foster your interest. But the place to learn is not from a bunch of dark books sitting atop the Hellmouth while being overseen by a suspect character like Andrew Wells."
"Do you really think Andrew of all people is evil?" Zoe said, exasperated. "He's a nerd! He's nicer than most of the boys from the academy are!"
"Not exactly a ringing endorsement there," Rachel muttered.
Mary ignored Rachel and kept hammering on Zoe. "Someone with your education ought to know not to judge everyone by their appearances."
Buffy was starting to get pretty peeved herself. "One thing we learn in school in America? When people say 'No offense', they mean 'Yes offense.'"
Mary tilted her head, acting as if she was perplexed, "I wasn't under the impression you cared what anyone else thought about your various unsavory minions. You've been forward on that point from the very start."
"They're not minions!" Buffy said. "They're my friends. They're all out there, every day, risking their lives against all sorts of deadly evil."
"Which is why I can tolerate-"
"We're the ones tolerating you!" She needed to be knocked off her high horse. "The Watchers' Council sat on the sidelines for years, mostly just telling us how we were all saving the world 'wrong', and now when we finally start to get somewhere you swooped in for a piece of the pie.
"Against all my expectations, some of you really have helped. A lot. But you, Mary? You've apparently decided your role is to keep complaining. At least Travers doesn't act like he's some perfect moral paragon."
"Conduct your affairs however you like," Snow answered. "Employ who you want. Cavort with who or what you please. But I will not stand by and let a girl I've been half a mother to for years sully herself with dark magic on the say-so of a warband of upjumped teenagers."
"I'm not some piece of fine china locked in a cage," Zoe spat. "Just because I'm not as tough as Rachel doesn't mean I can't make my own decisions."
"Not about this! You're under my authority and I forbid it," Mary said.
"Are we?" Rachel gave a little shrug. "Because you're not the one who's been signing the fat paychecks we've been getting over the past month."
Vote: Rachel raises an interesting point. This is Buffy's hellmouth, do they have to play by her rules?
[] Buffy attempts to override Mary's decision and declares that Zoe can read whatever magic books she likes. The Watcher's Council does have custody, but Zoe is 17, and Buffy can make their lives very difficult if they don't back down.
[] Buffy doesn't like it, but doesn't want to make a giant stink with the Watchers' Council either, not after things have been going so well. Zoe will be old enough to make her own decisions in less than a year.
