I just reread this whole thing, and for some reason during the MedHall Assault (didn't last long enough to be called a siege) all I could think about was the various agencies and taskforces worried about the Boss of Brockton Bay getting anonymously sent footage of the father of Overkill in action, without the information that the two were not the same individual, and wondering how and if that would raise their threat rating of their version of their version of Danny...
 
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So... Just finished binging this. It's definitely been fun, though I roll my eyes a bit at just how terrified everyone appears to be of mere death. I'm going to assume that's some kind of Doom master effect at work, because in a world when one could potentially be Greyboy'd or Bonesaw'd, or even Heartbreaker'd to turn on your loved ones, being merely vaporised in an instant honestly sounds like a very pleasant fate.

Also, Taylor... I can't say I approve of your hypocrisy. You gunned down all those poor stupid mooks who were just following orders, but you don't bother with the idiot boss who started this whole mess and got all his people killed in the first place? I mean, maybe there's a net good in what Kaiser was willing to cough up to the PRT, but it kind of sticks in my craw a bit that she's giving that guy mercy unlike her previous established "kill all those who start anything". Rune makes sense because she was pretty peripheral, and willing to be helpful, but Kaiser? Sure he's not a Nazi, but he's still the asshole willing to conscript a teen girl and murder her father.

Anyway, I didn't mean to complain so much, it just annoyed me. I still read through this entire story and found the power wank very entertaining, if not always wholly believable. I really enjoyed Taylor's sheer rage at everything and her growing skill in killing things, and I'm pretty amused how she's bullying Pink Mist Teleporter too. Lisa's and Dinah's powers are great, and so is everyone freaking out. I look forward to the next chapter, even if I'm disappointed at Kaiser's continued survival.
 
I don't think it's death per se that they are afraid of. Just instant, unstoppable death up to and including city-buster scale with zero known method to stop her. She's kind of like Siberian with a nuke at this point.
Oh yeah, plus the rage aura.
 
Yes, but remember, Taylor both has a respawn ability and looted the Mars Facility to the bedrock. Sophia would have no food, little water, no weapons that she didn't bring with her, no ammo, and every demon that fled Hell to go to Mars in hope of avoiding being where Taylor was going ready and willing to chow down on the unarmored squishy human.

Plus, well, Sophia is, in the end, a simple thug.
 
So... Just finished binging this. It's definitely been fun, though I roll my eyes a bit at just how terrified everyone appears to be of mere death. I'm going to assume that's some kind of Doom master effect at work, because in a world when one could potentially be Greyboy'd or Bonesaw'd, or even Heartbreaker'd to turn on your loved ones, being merely vaporised in an instant honestly sounds like a very pleasant fate.
Doom demons don't kill you.

They kill you, staple your soul into your undying flesh, torture you to turn your pain and suffering into Argent Energy (half of which is tithed to Heaven to keep the lights on), then once you run out of pain and suffering they rip out your soul, eat it, turn it into more Argent Energy and toss your soulless husk into the wastelands where it eventually transforms into a new demon.


Yeah, Doom Eternal actually managed to make Doom demons even worse than you would guess.
 
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Doom demons don't kill you.

They kill you, staple your soul into your undying flesh, torture you to turn your pain and suffering into Argent Energy (half of which is tithed to Heaven to keep the lights on), then once you run out of pain and suffering they rip out your soul, eat it, turn it into more Argent Energy and toss your soulless husk into the wastelands where it eventually transforms into a new demon.


Yeah, Doom Eternal actually managed to make Doom demons even worse than you would guess.

Let's not forget that the masters of Heaven and Hell were in agreement. That basic human existence was less important than the power they got from it.

Hellguy has it right. Rip and Tear, Until it is Done!
 
Let's not forget that the masters of Heaven and Hell were in agreement. That basic human existence was less important than the power they got from it.

Hellguy has it right. Rip and Tear, Until it is Done!
The substitute master of Heaven you mean, the real master ended up getting stolen by one of his angels, brainwiped and used as an administrative AI assistant while said angel masqueraded as a transhuman robot for reasons that probably made sense to him.

Said substitute master then struck a deal with the Dark Lord of Hell so as to get more of that delicious soul-juice and use it to live forever.


Because it turns out when you take away the AI from the AI controlled hive-mind and leave the drones to do whatever, they go wildly off the rails and start signing literal blood and slave and murder pacts with the demons of Hell.

Oops.
 
Doom demons don't kill you.

They kill you, staple your soul into your undying flesh, torture you to turn your pain and suffering into Argent Energy (half of which is tithed to Heaven to keep the lights on), then once you run out of pain and suffering they rip out your soul, eat it, turn it into more Argent Energy and toss your soulless husk into the wastelands where it eventually transforms into a new demon.


Yeah, Doom Eternal actually managed to make Doom demons even worse than you would guess.

I mean, even if that's true, how would people know that? Is Taylor actually a Doom demon? Is that happening to everyone she kills? Again, as far as anyone can tell, she just zaps or mulches people to death. Which I don't really consider that scary.

I don't think it's death per se that they are afraid of. Just instant, unstoppable death up to and including city-buster scale with zero known method to stop her. She's kind of like Siberian with a nuke at this point.
Oh yeah, plus the rage aura.

I mean, part of why Siberian is scary is that not only is she unkillable, but she's also a cannibalistic sadist. And there's a definite Terminator vibe for Taylor as she is now, but again, in a world where one can potentially be locked in eternal time loop of torture, or turned into an inhuman abomination, regular death seems pretty tame. Especially when it's not that hard to avoid pissing off Ms Terminator.

I'm going to just assume her rage aura is basically a master effect that induces fear at the same time.
 
I mean, part of why Siberian is scary is that not only is she unkillable, but she's also a cannibalistic sadist. And there's a definite Terminator vibe for Taylor as she is now, but again, in a world where one can potentially be locked in eternal time loop of torture, or turned into an inhuman abomination, regular death seems pretty tame. Especially when it's not that hard to avoid pissing off Ms Terminator.
The difference is that none of the people who can do that are right here standing in front of you.

Doom Queen Taylor is.
 
The substitute master of Heaven you mean, the real master ended up getting stolen by one of his angels, brainwiped and used as an administrative AI assistant while said angel masqueraded as a transhuman robot for reasons that probably made sense to him.

Said substitute master then struck a deal with the Dark Lord of Hell so as to get more of that delicious soul-juice and use it to live forever.


Because it turns out when you take away the AI from the AI controlled hive-mind and leave the drones to do whatever, they go wildly off the rails and start signing literal blood and slave and murder pacts with the demons of Hell.

Oops.

We don't know that. We only know what Samuel Hayden's background was by what's been mentioned in the games. Which we only have two of; I don't really count the earlier Doom games because there was little- if any -world-building in them.

However, I think that you're likely right. It's awfully convenient that Vega was able to interface with the controlling interface so well. It's also really convenient that his consciousness was able to stay in one smallish fortress, when before it took an entire facility to keep it going. It also explains why Doomguy saved Vega at the end of Doom 2016.

Eh, not like it matters; I just like to see Taylor blowing up Nazis.

For the one that didn't like the fact that she left Kaiser alive, just think about it. His entire organization has been shattered. He has nothing left. The fact that she left him alive after all of that is pure torture, especially since he now knows he has a rat's chance in hell to survive if she gets mad. Well, madder.
 
Also, Taylor... I can't say I approve of your hypocrisy. You gunned down all those poor stupid mooks who were just following orders, but you don't bother with the idiot boss who started this whole mess and got all his people killed in the first place? I mean, maybe there's a net good in what Kaiser was willing to cough up to the PRT, but it kind of sticks in my craw a bit that she's giving that guy mercy unlike her previous established "kill all those who start anything". Rune makes sense because she was pretty peripheral, and willing to be helpful, but Kaiser? Sure he's not a Nazi, but he's still the asshole willing to conscript a teen girl and murder her father.
The problem with killing everyone that crosses the line is then no one knows where the line is. So, you need to leave at least one survivor, and they need to be important enough for others to listen to as they share where the line is. At the same time, it must be made perfectly clear what the consequences of either crossing the line or not spreading the message are.

Kaiser's power has been stripped from him; not his parahuman power, but his far greater economic, social and political power. He has been humbled. He knows his life hangs by a thread. This makes him the perfect messenger, and you better believe he will spread the message.
 
The problem with killing everyone that crosses the line is then no one knows where the line is. So, you need to leave at least one survivor, and they need to be important enough for others to listen to as they share where the line is. At the same time, it must be made perfectly clear what the consequences of either crossing the line or not spreading the message are.

Kaiser's power has been stripped from him; not his parahuman power, but his far greater economic, social and political power. He has been humbled. He knows his life hangs by a thread. This makes him the perfect messenger, and you better believe he will spread the message.

I just feel it's terribly unfair that his order got a bunch of people killed, people who are probably objectively less terrible people than him. And yet he, the one who wasted all those lives, gets to keep his own.

The PRT had a perfectly good idea where the line was. Anyone with half a brain cell could understand where the line was. I call bull that a sufficiently important victim was needed to tell others where the line was. Leaving alive a bunch of mooks seems like it'd have spread the same news.

Basically, I don't like how it feels as if Kaiser got to live by virtue of being a Named Character when he got so many of his own mooks killed. Sure they're nameless mooks, but they're theoretically people too. Why did they get mercilessly slaughtered and not him?
 
Hahah, no, hookworm is not in any way better than Kaiser, apart from being too dumb to actually organise anything more complicated than a dog fight. Which is only better because of what he would want to organise if he could. Also, "I was just following orders" didn't work for the Nazis at Nuremberg, why would it suddenly start now?
The minions aren't much better off either not least because I'm pretty sure all of them, to get to the point of being trusted to know the secret of Medhall, would be at minimum a serial assaulter of BAME people, plus probably manslaughter and various drug and firearms offences on top.

Leaving Kaiser alive has benefits beyond what's been said already though; as long as he's alive and spilling the beans, the Gesellschaft networks can't put out propaganda about mistaken identity and excessive use of force etc., mostly because they'll be too busy being rolled up and stomped flat by law enforcement worldwide.
 
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Kaiser's messenger status will likely be undercut to a degree by the fact that he'll also have to admit for the record that he never was an actual Nazi -- which is the only reason Overkill's Father was willing to back her play... since they are clearly a surviving branch of THAT Nazi hunting family.

If he keeps claiming to be a Nazi, one or the other will likely hunt him down. Likely Overkill herself, since she can have that teleporter she's bullying (Doormaker?) drop him in her lap.
 
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I just feel it's terribly unfair that his order got a bunch of people killed, people who are probably objectively less terrible people than him. And yet he, the one who wasted all those lives, gets to keep his own.
Look at it this way, between everything the PRT can pin on him, the overseas allies that will be ticked off at him, and the hanging Sword of Damocles The Doom Queen has over him, Kaiser may well wish she had killed him.

The mooks got off lucky; they died quickly. Kaiser is unlucky enough to Live......
 
Also, Taylor... I can't say I approve of your hypocrisy. You gunned down all those poor stupid mooks who were just following orders, but you don't bother with the idiot boss who started this whole mess and got all his people killed in the first place? I mean, maybe there's a net good in what Kaiser was willing to cough up to the PRT, but it kind of sticks in my craw a bit that she's giving that guy mercy unlike her previous established "kill all those who start anything".

I don't really think it was mercy, the mooks simply got in her way, if they turned and ran, i doubt she would have pursued them, kaiser was left alive not as a mercy, but as a living warning to everyone else, "doesn't matter how powerful you are, how powerful your organization is, how hidden you are, if i want you, i can reach you".
If she killed him, the prt makes a report, and end of story, with kaiser alive, everyone that meets him, or is around him, will get that warning.

Also, she was just annoyed at him, not angry yet, and went to have a talk with him, the mooks were just in the way.
 
5. Omake - DOOM R&R
This is the result of an idea that originated on Discord, and wouldn't let me get back to writing the things I am actually working on until I got it out of the way. So you get some wordz :D



Crickets chirped in the night, the sound covering the more distant noises coming from miles away of cars on the interstate. Other than that it was as quiet as the grave, appropriately enough considering the location.

A light breeze added a faint susurrus to the ambiance as it moved the leaves of the trees and whispered through the grass of the unkempt and ill-maintained cemetery, disturbing the flowers left at a couple of fresher burial plots. A rabbit, hopping through the undergrowth, froze at the sound, ears alert and nose twitching, then relaxed and continued about its business.

Shortly afterwards, it stilled once more, immobile and staring as a misty dark pink cloud appeared out of nowhere in among the crypts. The strange manifestation was completely silent, but radiated a certain menace that even a simple animal could easily pick up on.

A second or two later a tall figure stepped out of the cloud, appearing as if it had walked around a corner that wasn't there in a manner that would have made a human observer wince. The heavily armored arrival looked around, the matte purple helmet moving from side to side, then it pulled out some sort of device from somewhere and inspected the thing briefly, before nodding and turning to the north, in the direction of the center of the town on whose outskirts this resting place of the dead lay. It studied the scanning device again, then put it away, before raising its hands to its helmet and removing it with a faint click.

Once the helmet was lifted clear, it revealed a young woman with long wavy black hair and piercing green eyes which moved across the dark scene, not apparently having any trouble with the night and the lack of illumination, only relieved by a thin shard of moon high above. She sniffed, then smiled slightly.

The rabbit moved a tiny amount, then froze again as the armored young woman snapped her head around so fast it wasn't even a blur, to stare directly at it in the long grass with unerring accuracy. Then she smiled faintly.

"Hello, bunny," she said very quietly, looking at the animal, which peered back, before twitching and spinning around then hopping away. The woman watched it go with mild amusement for a moment or two. Eventually she tucked her helmet under her arm and pulled out her scanner once more, flicking a couple of controls with her thumb and looking at the results with interest.

"Huh. Worth investigating, I guess," she mumbled to herself. "I could do with a nice relaxing vacation anyway. Let's see what that is."

Having made a note of the direction to what her instruments indicated was some sort of dimensional breach, she put the device back in her armor and began walking through the graveyard, looking around with an air of one who's seen it before and wasn't impressed the first time. As she walked she put her helmet back on.

Eventually she left the unusually large cemetery and found herself on a road which led towards the main part of the town, street lights in the distance illuminating the horizon with a dim glow. Glancing up at the sign at the entrance, she read it, then shrugged.

"Sunnydale. Never heard of it."

She turned her back on her arrival point and casually walked on, her power armor making surprisingly quiet but menacingly heavy footsteps in the dark.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Half an hour later, a head poked out of the still-there pink mist, looking around with quick motions. It wasn't even slightly human, glowing eyes inspecting the landscape with caution and intelligence. Seconds later it vanished again.

A short period later and it came back, complete with the thing it was part of, who was at the head of a procession of even more bizarre figures who followed it as it headed deeper into the graveyard. When the last of them was clear, the mist faded from view. The night returned to quiet and calm.

Until the screaming began a couple of hours later, much of it underground in the extensive network of tunnels that underlay the entire area.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"What are you supposed to be?"

The voice came from a dark alley Taylor was walking past, causing her to slow as two figures emerged into the pool of light produced by a nearby streetlamp. She'd been aware of them for some time, and knew there were others in the area, including three more down the same alley.

Stopping, she looked them up and down as they did the same to her. Both appeared more or less human but clearly weren't as they had no real biosigns as far as her armor's sensors were concerned, read as ambient temperature, and had deformed faces. She could see elongated incisors in the mouth of the one that had spoken, who was roughly as tall as she was but about twice as wide, dressed in clothing that would have been in style in the sixties at the latest. His companion was shorter and skinnier, and was wearing a baseball cap backwards over slicked back hair. Both of them had somewhat puzzled expressions on their faces, easily discernible even past the distortions caused by whatever was wrong with them.

She smiled a little inside her helmet. They felt almost like some of the things she encountered in her travels but far less interesting and so weak it was laughable. The sad part was that based on their body language they thought themselves to be predators.

It was rather amusing in a way.

"Halloween was months ago," the same one said after a few seconds, smirking at her as he tried to look through her faceplate. "Nice costume, though."

"Thank you," she replied politely. "What did you go as?"

The creature stared at her, then laughed loudly. "Ha. A sense of humor. Won't help, but that was pretty funny, girl."

She shrugged and resumed walking. Both of them stepped out in front of her, causing her to stop again, then sigh faintly. "Really? What do you want?"

He leered at her. "Maybe see what's inside the wrapping?" he replied, reaching out for her shoulder.

Taylor calmly broke his arm at the elbow, then said, "Don't touch the armor. No one touches the armor."

The creature recoiled, his right arm hanging limply, echoes of the meaty crack dying away in the quiet streets. Which were far quieter than seemed plausible, she mused as she watched to see what would happen next. "Bitch!" he screamed in pain. "That fucking hurt!" Grabbing his arm he massaged it, exchanged a look with his companion, then both of them lunged at her.

Sidestepping she grabbed him by the top of the head and gently squeezed, the result being a sound best described as a mix between 'crunch' and 'pop.' The headless corpse stumbled a single further step then flashed into a cloud of dust which settled to the ground with a very quiet hiss.

"Oh, shit," the second one managed to say before she punched him in the back hard enough to send him flying about eighty feet into the side of a parked truck, which rocked on its suspension and vibrated with a loud clang. He slid down the now-dented side, landing on the street on his face, then slowly climbed to his feet shaking his head. When he turned to look at her he just had time to have his eyes widen before a low-power shot from her plasma rifle turned him to an expanding cloud of vapor, the shot also punching a hole completely through the truck behind him.

"Oops," she muttered, somewhat embarrassed, then looked down at the weapon and made a couple of adjustments. "Too much power. Drop it another, hmm, forty percent maybe?"

Pointing the gun to the side she pulled the trigger three times, the shots going down the alley. "Yeah, that works. Hardly any collateral damage at all."

Satisfied, she put the weapon away again and resumed her pace, while three piles of dust settled out behind her.

"I wonder what those things were?" she said to herself as she walked, following the readings on her scanner which she consulted every now and then. "Meh. Not important. Neat the way they dispose of themselves though."

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Just what I wanted," Drusilla softly said, holding Spike's hand, as she stared at the horned blue demon. Looking up at her from his wheelchair, the blond vampire smiled a little, before going back to examining the newly-resurrected Judge.

As he was about to say something, a brilliant orange-yellow fireball came over his head from the direction of the down to the tunnels below them, impacting on the Judge who didn't even have a chance to say anything. The demon exploded into gibbets of steaming meat as all the vampires present froze in shock, then as one turned to look to where whatever it was had come from.

"We serve HER will," the huge and vastly more impressively horned creature standing behind half a dozen human-sized brownish creatures remarked with a nasty grin on his face. "We deal with the minor problems that are beneath HER notice, so that she might concentrate on the more important ones."

"What the fuck are you?" Spike shouted. He was furious, but also looking warily at the smaller demonic figures, two of which were holding fireballs in their hands and clearly ready to fire. He'd never seen or heard of either type of demon before, which was worrying.

The large one stared at him for a second or two, then laughed in a deep unsettling voice. "We are HERS to command. SHE leads, we follow, and all join her or fall before her might." It took a step closer, its huge hooves clomping on the stone floor, and raised a hand which began to glow green. Spike's eyes widened in horror. "Unfortunately for you, vermin are unworthy of HER."

The last thing any of them saw was a green fireball the size of a car.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Giles walked out of his office, where Buffy was napping with her head resting on her folded arms, to meet Angel walking down the stairs from the stacks. As he was half-way through asking a question, he was interrupted by the vampire suddenly stiffening, raising his eyes from the book he was holding to the door out of the library. The Watcher quickly turned to look in the same direction. "What is it?" he said urgently, well aware how much better than human Angel's hearing was.

"Footsteps," Angel replied in a low voice, sounding worried. "Heavy ones."

"The Judge?" Giles was appalled. "Here? Now?"

"I don't know," the other man said, closing the book and dropping it to the table, then heading for the door. Everyone stopped what they were doing as they became aware something was wrong. Quickly moving back into his office Giles grabbed an ax from under one of his desks and went back into the main room, just in time to see Angel's body come flying through the doorway, removing one of the doors from its hinges en route. Xander and Cordelia ducked as the vampire went overhead and slammed into the book cage with a crash that shook the room, then dropped to the floor.

"Good lord," Giles stammered, watching in shock, then turned as solid footsteps became audible, moving at a completely even pace towards the library from the corridor outside. The entire group of people tore their horrified attention from the groaning vampire on the floor and also looked back at the door.

A moment later they recoiled in shock as a tall figure wearing some sort of high tech matte purple armor appeared in the entrance, lifting a hand to casually brush the remaining door half out of the way, while the other hand was occupied with a small device that was emitting a series of chirping sounds and blinking a display of some sort. The new arrival's entire attention was on the thing as it entered the library, ignoring everyone present aside from stepping over Xander who had hit the deck when Angel came past.

"Excuse me," it said absently, sounding like a young woman. She waved the little device around slowly, the sounds coming and going, until she stopped with it pointing at the far side of the room.

Directly at the capped Hell Mouth, Giles realized with a sinking sensation.

"Aha!" she exclaimed, sounding pleased. "There it is." She moved towards it.

Angel, who had recovered from what must have been an enormous impact, climbed painfully to his feet then lunged at her with his entire unnatural speed and power.

Without looking at him she back-handed him so fast and so hard that Giles couldn't even track the motion, the vampire abruptly reversing course and ending up right back where he'd begun, with another crash. The armored woman completely ignored him and walked over to the large table that was sitting on top of the cap, then easily slid it to the side with a screech from the legs on the floor. She showed no sign of effort from shifting something so heavy it normally took half a dozen people to handle.

"What do we do, Giles?" Willow said in a hoarse whisper, behind her hand, as she stared fixedly at the armored woman, who was now bending over examining the cap closely. "Who is that? Some sort of demon?" Jenny was standing next to the girl, gaping at the purple armor with a look of complete disbelief on her face, while Xander had got to his hands and knees and quickly crawled over to Cordelia, both teenagers now hiding behind one of the other tables and watching cautiously.

"I don't know, nor do I know who or what that is." He shook his head, frantically going over every demon he could think of to try to identify their unwelcome visitor. None he could think of used armor of this nature. It looked, aside from anything else, more like some form of technology than something magic-based, although his own mystical senses were screaming that it was radiating a sort of magical energy that utterly dwarfed anything he'd ever experienced in his life. Even in his wild younger years.

"Hmm. Crap job, it's leaking like crazy," the woman commented as she ran another device over the seal. He couldn't work out where she'd got it from or where the first one had gone. "Dimensional flux is unstable too. Whoever did this has no idea how do it properly." She didn't seem to be talking to them, it was more like she was making notes to herself. "I knew this would come in handy sooner or later, though." She produced yet another widget, this one in a shape that was hard to look at. "Crazy reptiles know their stuff, unlike whoever did this," she mumbled, making some adjustments on the whatever-it-was while glancing between it and the seal.

Giles had a very bad feeling about what was going on.

"Demon! Get away from there!" Everyone jumped as Buffy came zooming out of the office, having apparently just become aware of what was going on, and launched herself at the armored woman in a flying high kick.

And immediately found herself dangling from one ankle which was held in the armored gauntlet of the woman, who had straightened, turned, and lashed out so quickly the movement made the Slayer look like she was moving in slow motion. Giles gaped in complete shock, not having ever seen anything living react that quickly. It was far faster than even a Slayer could move.

"Hey, stop that," the woman said mildly, lifting the much shorter blonde to eye level. "I'm busy. If you want to fight, it'll have to wait." She lowered Buffy to the floor again and let go, the girl tucking into a roll instantly and rebounding towards the armored woman in a blur of lethal blows.

"What did I just say?" the woman sighed, grabbing Buffy by the clothing and lifting her clear of the floor again. The girl lashed out with hands and feet, which achieved absolutely nothing.

"Holy shit," Giles heard Xander say in a tone of wonderment. "Who is that?"

"Look, if you want to play, I'm game, but I really am busy right now, so if you could just calm down that would help, OK?" Whoever was in the armor walked over to a chair and firmly put Buffy, who was going red with fury and still kicking and punching the arm holding her without any effect at all, in it. "Sit. Stay. Good girl."

She let go and turned around, then sighed heavily as Buffy was suddenly on her back, trying to unscrew her head.

"Really? Can't I go on vacation without idiots attacking me all over the place?" the woman grumbled as she unpeeled the furious blonde, then casually kicked Angel in the stomach as he again attacked her from the other side. For the third time he slammed into the wall then dropped on the floor, this time on his back, looking dazed. Buffy shrieked in rage and struggled harder, to no avail whatsoever. "Weird deformed dead people all over the place, this idiot, and blondie with anger management issues," she went on, holding Buffy in the air with one hand while she felt over her armor with the other one. "Which, coming from me, is hilarious. Ah." She produced a small gun-like device and pointed it at the struggling blonde girl, then fired it before anyone could do anything.

There was a faint hiss and a moment later Buffy relaxed completely, a smile on her face. "Better," the woman said in satisfaction. "This time just sit there, all right?" She put Buffy back into the chair, then let go, before quickly grabbing her again as she threatened to slide out of it. "Whoops. Dose was a little too high," she remarked to the room at large. "Oh well. She's got a fast metabolism, it'll be fine."

"I can see everything," Buffy said in a dreamy voice. "It's made of lizards."

The entire room, including Angel, stared at her.

She giggled. "So pretty..."

"Yeah… Definitely too high a dose," the woman finally said, shaking her head. She patted Buffy on the shoulder then went back to the Hell Mouth and resumed fiddling with the odd looking device.

"Who are you?" Cordelia erupted, standing up from where she and Xander had been hiding. The boy put his hand over his eyes and remained where he was.

Turning to her, the armored woman looked at her for a moment. "My name's Taylor," she replied without rancor. "I'm not local. Just passing through. I needed a little relaxation and this dimension seems interesting." Then she went back to whatever it was that she was doing.

"Ah… What are you doing, Taylor?" Giles asked very carefully. "And for that matter, what did you do to Buffy?"

"Buffy?" The woman who called herself Taylor glanced at him, the lights reflecting from her golden visor in a way that was rather unnerving, then looked at the inanely grinning blonde who seemed to be fascinated by her own fingers. "Really? Huh. It's just a mild tranquilizer gas. People I picked it up from use it for non-lethal takedowns. Seems pretty effective." She chuckled a little. "She's going to really want a drink of water when it wears off though. And she might be missing a few minutes. It's safe otherwise."

"I see," Giles replied, lying through his teeth. None of this made any sense whatsoever. "And your purpose here in this room?"

Taylor indicated the Hell Mouth cap. "Picked up the signature of a dimensional breach, thought I'd come and have a look at it. I've seen something like this before and it was good fun sorting it out." She sounded almost eager, in a way that made his blood run cold.

"That's a portal to hell itself, you crazy woman," Cordelia screamed.

"Hell?" Taylor looked at her, then down at the seal, before reaching up and pulling her helmet off. The face under it was of someone perhaps nineteen or so, with eyes that were much too old but sparking with a bizarre sort of humor and high intelligence. "Yeah, no. It's not Hell, I can guarantee you that. I'd know. It's just a parallel micro-universe full of hostile and xenophobic kind of aliens. I've seen that before. They're really entertaining for a while," she explained patiently, holding up the device which was even more difficult to look at now. "Not much of a challenge but sometimes it's amusing to have endless waves of enemies coming at you, you know?"

She looked somehow nostalgic for a second, if a grin that horrifying could be termed as such.

"Anyway, I'll just pop this thing open and I'll be out of your hair," she went on, putting her helmet on the table next to her, then raising the device in her hand.

A crossbow bolt hit her in the back of the head and exploded into fragments.

Everyone turned to see Angel holding the crossbow it had come from, then turned back to look at Taylor, who had apparently not actually noticed.

"Oh, shit," the vampire said very quietly indeed.

"There we are. Got the resonant frequency locked, so all I have to do is find the second harmonic and put it in antiphase, then ramp up the gain, and..." She prodded the thing. A deep rumble made the room vibrate, while a very high pitched whine like an angry mosquito accompanied it.

The floor smoked inside the seal, then it cracked. Otherworldly light spread upwards from the ground, filling the room with an unholy glow.

Taylor smiled widely, lit from beneath with reddish illumination. She bent over the widening opening, peering down with an expression of interest, as everyone else simply observed, unable to think of anything to do in the face of completely insane armored women from nowhere. "Oh, cool, that's even better than I hoped," she exclaimed happily. Making the device vanish, she picked up her helmet and put it on, the thing sealing with a click, then was suddenly holding an enormous gun unlike anything any of them had ever seen before.

Buffy pointed at it and giggled.

"See you later," the mad woman called, then dived head first into the gaping Hell Mouth with a whoop.

A couple of seconds after that there was a screech of rage that made the entire building shake. Glass shattered somewhere.

The Hell Mouth slammed shut with a boom.

Silence fell.

Nearly five minutes went past with not a single sound from any of them.

Then Buffy hiccuped. "Wow, I'm thirsty," she commented brightly, shaking her head as they all looked at her. "Hey, what's going on? Why are you looking at me like that? Giles, you broke your glasses!"

He looked down at the distorted mess in his hand, then sighed.

A very faint roar came from somewhere he couldn't pinpoint, making Buffy cock her head and look around for a moment. "Did anyone else hear that?"

Angel put the crossbow on the table, then sat down next to it and stared at the Hell Mouth with a completely blank expression. Giles went into his office to look for his spare glasses.

"Why does my mouth feel like I ate a pound of sand?" Buffy complained. "Yuck. Gross."

He wondered how much scotch he could add to his tea before anyone noticed.
 
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So, I'm drunk and I immediately imagined "Crickets chirped in the night" as several versions of the cape Cricket being so terrified of Taylor that they pretended they were actual crickets.

I'm going to go sleep this off because if that's where my mind goes first not only should I not be awake I definitely shouldn't have access to the Internet.
 
I'll be honest, the one thing that surprised me the most was that Angel didn't manage his apparent dream of suicide by Taylor. I mean real Tay, you conldn't have put him out our misery when he asked so nicely three times?
 
Well. Good news. You've hit that perfect blend of funny and insane that has resulted in all the neighbors wondering what that loud cackling and thumping noise is, and if they can have some of whatever I'm apparently on.

Excellent.
He could probably bring the bottle and nobody would care after that display.
If they don't let him keep the bottle after that series of events, it's only because they are drinking it first.
 
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