FF/Revelations and Realizations (3/?)

[keeper444@xxxxxxxxx]

Hi Folks,
Since y'all seemed to like the first chapter, or at least a few, (there
a few comments of the flaming variety but they are smoldering in the
cyber-garbage where they belong), I'm going ahead with this. 

Remember this is a work in progress and if you want to have any
influence about the direction of this fic you gotta sent me something.
K?

So without further blatant stalling, here's the fic. Hope you enjoy the
ride.

Later
Alex
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Full disclaimers can be found at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/buffywantswillow/message/8661  
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Revelations and Realizations (2/?) 
by Alex 
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Giles was getting worried. Ever since Buffy and Willow had left with 
their Druid friends a lot of strange things had started happening, each 
one worse than the last until last night the most frightening of all had 
occurred. 

He and Jeffrey had accidentally come upon a strange and sickening 
ritual. 

A Chaos demon was standing behind an alter with several humans in black 
robes surrounding it and chanting in some unknown and archaic language. 

As the two men watched terrified from the shadows, one by one the humans 
presented themselves willingly to the demon, who casually ripped them to 
shreds, letting the blood and viscera fall on the alter. 

When the last humans' screams died out there was a blinding flash of red 
light from the alter. When their vision cleared there was no sign 
of the human victims, only the demon and a tall figure in a blood red 
robe, its face hidden by the robe's cowled hood. 

The demon knelt down in front of the figure, it bowed it's head and the 
robed figure placed it's hand on the demons' head and spoke. 

What bothered Giles was the figure's voice was not the irritating 
sibilant hiss of a demon but the softest, sexiest, most seductive female 
alto he had ever heard. 

"You have done well my child" the figure said to her demon servant "Our 
master shall reward you handsomely." 

The demon looked up adoringly into the face of what Giles could only 
think of as his Goddess. 

"Thank you Milady" the demon hissed reverently "My brethren have kept 
watch on the Countess as you wished. She was until recently hiding in 
  the place the humans call Asia, then she turned up in Eastern
Europe,  
  now it appears she is coming here." 

"Very well my child our Master will be pleased" the female figure 
assured her worshipper "Now take us to our shelter we must rest, it was
a 
long trip across the veil." 

The demon held his arm out to the female in the robe and she placed her 
delicate alabaster skinned hand on his dark scaled arm, and in a 
blinding flash of red light they were gone. 
========================== 
As soon as they were sure that everyone still alive was gone, the two 
men slipped cautiously out of the shadows that had hidden them safely as 
they observed the arrival of some unknown entity to their realm. 

Giles only hoped that the "Countess" the demon had spoken of wasn't 
Hela, but deep down his watcher instincts told him that the deadly 
menace was once again involved in something disturbing about to happen 
on the Hellmouth. 

As Giles suspected, there wasn't a single shred of evidence that anyone 
had been there other than themselves. There was no sign that all those 
people had suffered a gruesome and horrifying death, their entire 
essence had been absorbed by the opening of a portal to bring to 
Sunnydale yet another entity that really didn't belong here. 

Jeffrey turned his attentions to the alter, on closer examination the 
paranormal MD, and one time monk, found some very intriguing markings
and 
characteristics. 

First of all the alter stone itself was not only very ancient it 
wasn't native of anywhere close to the Americas. It was made of some 
crystalline form that neither of them had ever seen before but had heard 
of in very old texts. 

It was incredibly hard yet the edges were absolutely smooth as if it was 
shaped then hardened yet appeared to never have been touched by any 
tool. 

The writing was another mystery, it wasn't chiselled into the rock 
but raised from the surface as if put there separately after the stone 
was formed but they were of the rock itself and neither man was able to 
discern how it was done. 

Jeffrey, who had spent many years studying the most ancient writings, 
recognised it as a form of Hebrew that pre-dated even the Kabala or the 
Torah, it was writing he'd only seen in the rarest texts that pre-dated 
even the flood, and the earliest original records of the Genesis. 

He carefully copied each symbol to be sure he got it absolutely perfect, 
down to every curve and irregularity. He was obsessed with it, and 
assured Giles that once they were back at Giles study he had the books 
and reference materials to translate it. 

As he continued his examination Jeffrey was disturbed by the large 
symbol he found in the center of the alter. He was sure he knew that 
symbol from memory because of it's significance in every piece of demon 
and darkness material that the former monk had ever studied. 

The symbol scared the hell out of the former churchman and now staunch 
ally, it even caused him to urge Giles to end their examination of the 
area and forego any further patrol sweeps he may have planned. 

"If I'm right Rupert, we are all in big trouble." Jeffrey insisted, his 
voice more intense than the ex-watcher had ever heard it before in their 
many years of association, "I believe we have just witnessed the return 
to this realm of a being that has been exiled from this realm since the 
earliest beginnings of time." 

"Oh come now Jeffrey," Giles returned believing his friend and colleague 
was being overly dramatic, "after what we've faced in the last year, I 
doubt this is all that serious." 

"Rupert if I'm correct about this," the doctor spoke slowly and 
carefully wanting to be sure that his long time friend clearly 
understood the gravity of what he was saying, "compared to the entity I 
believe we just witnessed arriving, the beings we faced before are 
nothing more than a nuisance. 
This single being could very well be 
the most powerful entity to enter 
this realm since the Old Ones 
left this world to make way for the Gods 
of man." 

Giles followed his friend and comrade's advice and after they finished 
copying all the writing and symbols on the ancient stone edifice, using 
the new digital camera Willow had given Giles, they went directly to 
Giles' home where they had all stayed since Buffy and Willow had left 
this realm. 
====================== 
Leaving Jeffrey in the study to research their findings, Giles went in 
to the front room, to fill in time, the stoic Englishman went into the 
kitchen and brewed himself a pot of his favorite Earl Grey, he poured 
himself a cup and sipped the aromatic beverage as he paced the floors, 
stopping every other circuit to look out the windows. 

The ex-watcher and acknowledged leader of this little band of warriors 
in the battle against the Dark was beginning to seriously worry. 

<>Some great leader you are Rupert,<>the worried man scolded 
himself<>two of your people have disappeared from the face of the Earth 
and now two more are late returning from patrol<> 

He looked up at the clock and saw that another thirty minutes had gone 
by and still no word from Xander or Cordelia, picking up the phone the 
worried ex-watcher tried calling the younger couple for the fifth time 
since he and Jeffrey had returned from their part of the night's patrol 
sweeps. 

The first number Giles tried was the couple's apartment and when the 
machine answered he yelled into the impassive device. 

"Xander...Cordelia, are you there...if you are please pick up, I am
tired 
of talking to this Bloody machine!" Giles waited a few heartbeats then 
disconnected the line his frustration making way for worried anger "I 
swear if those two are off shagging somewhere and not answering their 
calls I swear..." 

The Englishman hurriedly punched in the number of Cordelia's cell phone 
and waited hoping the ex cheerleader would answer. 

"Damn it!" Giles snarled as he slammed the receiver back into it's 
cradle "I can't believe she has that irritating phone turned off." 

The frustrated Englishman began pacing the floors, again stopping every 
so often to look out a window to see if either one or both of the 
missing youngsters might be coming up the walkway or from the driveway 
in. 

"You still haven't heard from the kids?" Jeffrey called from the study, 
"They should have been back hours ago, shouldn't they?" 

"Quite so and it's nearly sunrise and they haven't contacted us," Giles 
told the doctor, 

"This really isn't like either one of them." Giles said to explain his 
anxiety, "Despite the way I talk to them they really are very 
responsible young people. 
Neither one of them would miss a check in unless something happened." 

When the four had got ready to split up before their patrol they had 
agreed to meet back at Giles townhouse to compare reports. As best Giles 
could figure the two young lovers should have been back by one a.m. two 
at the latest, but now the sun was nearly up and Giles still hadn't 
heard from them. 

He hoped that everything was alright and there would be an explanation 
for this no matter how poor, but after the amount of time Giles had
spent 
on the Hellmouth and other dark areas he had a bad feeling that the news 
from the two missing Scoobies would be bad. 

He was hoping that they had 
stopped to get some coffee and a talk. 
Even Giles had noticed a lot of tension between the two of them lately 
and deep down he knew why He was hoping that maybe they'd stopped 
somewhere to straighten things out. 

Aside from Angel, Giles was the only one that knew the whole story of 
why Cordelia had left Los Angeles, he alone knew what caused the one 
time cheerleader to pack up her things in a panic, and come back to 
Sunnydale, the last place on this Earth that she wanted to be. 

He was also fairly sure why she had accepted Xander's marriage proposal 
in such a hurry, he was aware of how the panic and desperation were 
driving the beautiful young woman into doing something she really didn't 
want to do. 

He and Angel were both very aware of the once popular young woman 
thoughts on marriage of any kind but in her frantic search for an 
acceptable way out of her situation was getting ready to do the very 
thing that would more than likely lead to, at the very best, a life of 
lies for her. 

At worst it would cost her the very things she was getting married to 
save, and separate her from the only true friends she'd ever had. 

Giles had wanted to step in and try to get one of the headstrong young 
people to understand the terrible mistake, and possibly save them from 
the dire consequences of such a misstep. 

In his conversations with Xander, Giles got the feeling that the young 
man had a suspicion of what was going on with his future bride, but he 
was refusing to see it in his own blind quest for the woman he'd once 
lost. 

Then Willow stepped in and reasoned with Giles explaining to the former 
librarian that if he tried to pressure them into holding off it would 
only serve to make them more determined to follow the path that would 
ruin their lives. 

If the surrogate father would stand back and let the young couple figure 
it out on their own, they might be more willing to back down, and see
the 
disaster they were headed for. She told the ex-watcher that she'd had 
the same basic conversation with Buffy and finally convinced her that 
they must allow the couple to find their proper paths on their own, just 
as she and Buffy had. 
======================== 
Now Giles was getting seriously worried, the young couple was still
missing. 
When they had split up for the nightly patrol, Giles had been sure it 
was clear that it had been agreed to rendezvous back at his townhouse. 

If there were any delays they would be in contact so that if assistance 
was needed it would be there quickly. He knew that calling the police 
was out of the question even though Xander was one of them. 

The SDPD wasn't about go into any area that might force them to publicly 
take notice of all the mysterious disappearances that took place in 
their "quiet, peaceful" little town. Policy stated that a person or 
persons must be missing for at least forty-eight hours before they were 
considered "officially missing" by the police and in Sunnydale that rule 
was followed strictly to the letter. 

"I swear" Giles muttered "if those two have stopped off for coffee and 
a talk or they are out making out somewhere without letting me know they 
are alright, I am going to give them a real piece of my mind, and if 
this is another one of their silly fights I can't be responsible"

"I'll try Cordelia's cell phone again" he said out loud to no one. 

Giles strode purposefully into the front hall to call yet another time, 
but just as he reached for the phone, it began ringing causing him to 
jump back for a second, then in anxious anticipation he grabbed for the 
irritating device. 

"Rupert Giles here." he said into the phone his voice deceptively calm. 

Before he could continue he was interrupted by the frantic voice of 
Joyce Summers on the other end of the line. 
======================= 
The dark haired young woman groaned in her sleep, every muscle in her 
body was stiff and sore. 

She could hear the sounds of some kind of machinery running close to
her, 
and something was making the most irritating beeping noise. Her mind 
rebelled at being taken away from the dreamscape she'd come to feel
would 
be her home forever. 

<>No, that can't be right<>her tired mind told her<>no one can live in a 
dreamscape, I know that much. I just wish I could remember something, 
anything, like maybe where the hell am I, better yet...WHO the hell am
I<> 

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END 2 
TBC 
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