FIC:: Daybreak Has Been Postponed (11/13)

["C S Armitage" <soren_nyrond@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

TITLE: Daybreak Postponed [approximately] (11/13)
AUTHOR: Soren Nyrond
DISCLAIMER: All characters in this part belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy -- etc etc as in part (0/12). Some ideas have been borrowed for elsewhere to illuminate this story: they did once belong to Other Companies (and still do, I imagine), but since they are by way of being generic concepts, Idon't think anything's awry.
SUMMARY: Okay -- cuts in vast size and vast amounts of boring exposition. And for those who thought that last part was short, this probbaly makes up(Please note: I wirte this down: the Muse composes it)
ARCHIVING:: Talk to me -- there may need to be re-edits on earlier bits ofthis, thanks to kind feedback.
SPOILERS: None - none of this ever happened in the ME-world
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Molto gratitude for the nice feedback, guys. Save The Snippets !!!
  


DAYBREAK HAS BEEN POSTPONED
By Soren Nyrond

Part Ten - Cerebral Laundry (or Not)

 

 

"Oh oh - " Willow was listening. "I can hear something !"

Faith and Buffy were on high alert instantaneously, and Willow herself started to marshal her wiccan strength in case it was needed.

The sound she had heard, a soft chiming sound, grew in strengthslightly and suddenly Faith came out of her combat stance. Then she and Samantha started walking towards the door.

"Is something up ?" Cordelia asked, looking to Xander and Giles.

The Watcher's answer came in a quick command: "Hang on to them - I'm not sure, but -- "

The phrase "easier said than done" came to mind: as soon as either girl perceived that their progress was being impeded, they moved to remove whatever the obstacle was. Buffy managed to duck to one side, but Cordelia and Xander were less fortunate. Both of them were dislodged with straight-arm shoves to the chest and fell to the floor.

 

 

Giles had no idea of what to do, but Willow remembered an incantation which Tara had showed her, for 'Musick of the Spheres'. She recitedit, and then repeated it, pointing her fingers at the two, now about to leave the room.

Both girls came to a halt and then their faces regained animation.

"What happened ? What's that -- ?" 

"Don't move," Willow told them. "Something tried to take you over - if you stand still. I can protect you." For how long, she wasn't sure, but . 

"Faith ?" Buffy said; "Faith - what went on there ?"

"B - I don't know." The agony was clear in Faith's voice: she had had control taken away from her - she had been made a puppet. She started to move but by then Giles and Buffy were at her side.

"What's going on ?" Samantha said. "I'm supposed to be in class." She looked round. "It's dark in here - why isn't -- ?" Her voice trailed off and she sat down on the floor as though the energy had been leeched out of her.

"What's happened, Giles ?" Buffy demanded to know.

"I can't be sure," Rupert Giles replied. "But I rather suspectthat, just as you were temporarily hypnotised, so they have been rather more thoroughly indoctrinated."

"But how could they do that to Faith ?"

"As you know, there are some demons with the power to cloud themind. The Master was able to confuse you, when you finally faced him, andmany of the oldest vampires possess a similar power. The Watchers have always sought for ways to counter this: incantations, so-called 'holy symbols', rigorous training. I know, when I first studied here, there was some effort made to apply the same techniques are were offered to resist brain-washing.

"Now, I suspect, Quentin Travers has adapted this for his own ends. You weren't Called until relatively late, until, in fact, your predecessor was dead. Therefore you didn't have the sort of preliminary trainingSamantha has been under. And I feel sure that Faith had some similar tutelage before her first watcher died - in her case it appears not to have taken as strongly. Probably a combination of her unusually powerful will and the fact that she never came to Dragonslaut."

"Can't you do anything ?" Xander asked. "I mean, with two Slayers under enemy control, we - "

"Point taken, Xander, thank you. Willow, for how long can you keep up whether you are doing ?"

"I'm starting to get a little tired, Giles, but I'll go on for as long - "

"No, no - I may be able . "

He turned to Faith: "You have to trust me - totally."

For a moment Faith looked mutinous, but then Cordelia knelt beside her.

"Come on, Faith - you know Giles wouldn't hurt you, no matter -" Cordelia bit her tongue, but the message had got through.

"Even if I did hurt him - that what you're saying C ? Yeah, I know. Go on, G-Man: do your stuff - whatever it is."

Giles braced his palms against the sides of Faith's head and then began a soft, lilting chant. Buffy could hardly heard it, but somehow it sounded utterly soothing and cleansing. Willow recognised it as something she had seen in both Celtic and Arapaho texts, though Giles was reciting it in a peculiar amalgam of Enochian speech and Harlem-rap. Xander, for his part, was busy looking after Samantha (and wondering whether there was any way Anya could know what we had been thinking when next he saw her. He knew she tolerated his relationship with Buffy and Willow (they had been "there" first, after all), and the one incident with Faith (he hadn't admittedto the *other* ones) but how she would cope if he tried to get close to another Slayer was a question he didn't want to look at to closely -- as opposed to Samantha's cleavage, which he didn't mind looking at however closelyhe got the chance).

Samantha remained passive - she had been told not to move, and could hear the music and she didn't want to move if that meant losing the music.

 

Finally, Giles felt that Faith would either be restored, or theprogramming would have gone so deep as to prevent her ever returning to normal. He trailed off his chant, released Faith's temples, and looked up. To his relief he could tell she was back to her normal self, with a gamin grin.

"Hey, G - that was lovely. But don't give up the day job. B -do I gather the dude who did this to me is here ? Are we going to *punish* him ?"

She bobbed up and hugged Buffy, before turning to embrace Cordelia. Buffy watched, and, glancing at Willow, started to count, slowly. When she got to fifteen and the two were still lip-locked, she cocked an eyebrow, and whispered "Involved, much ?"  

Willow smiled: it was good to see that the Rogue Slayer and theCoolth Queen had managed to reach an accommodation.

Now attention turned to Samantha.

"Will what you did to Faith work on her ?" Buffy queried.

Giles paused, and considered.

"Giles - I'm not sure . " Willow said.

"Faith, Cordy - you're needed." Buffy decided that it was timefor action rather then words. She broke into the passionate embrace the two were still conducting (albeit slightly less compresedly).

She organised the two of them, and Xander, to help her hold Samantha, while Willow took a rest from bespelling her.  

As soon as the spell faded, Samantha lost any kind of self-willand started to struggle again, but with a Slayer on each arm, there was less that she could do, and Giles was able to try a slightly different incantation.

"If this works, we may be able to get answers to some of the questions we need answered," he said. "And, actually, ones that Samantha might not have been able to answer otherwise."

Then he returned to his soft, gentle, bidding, whilst the otherfour gripped Samantha's arms and wrists, to hold her motionless.

 

 

 

For Samantha, it was like floating up from the depths of a cold, dark, lake. She had felt lost and alone, and now she was coming back to life, to light, to friends, to .

To a chilly, dark room, and people barely visible.

She drew breath to scream, and a voice beside her left ear said"Don't you dare - I didn't come all this way to have my eardrum blown out - "

"Cordy - sympathy ?"

"Just a friendly warning," Cordelia Chase replied. "I wouldn'twant it said I didn't warn."

"Samantha - how do you feel ?"

"Mr Giles ? Mr Giles - what's happening ? Why am I being . held like this ?"

"Let her go," Giles instructed. Buffy and Faith released theirgrips and Cordelia and Xander likewise.

"You had - an incident," Giles said, gently, trying to lead up to the truth.

"I - where's Miss Jennings ? What's happened to her ?"

"We don't know," Buffy interrupted. "Giles - if they were expecting her to be somewhere - "

"I know what you mean, Buffy - but hopefully anyone looking forSamantha will look where she ought to be."

"Looking for me ? Who's looking for me ?"

"Calm down," Willow said, and muttered some other words and at once Samantha felt her fears recede.

"Now, Samantha - do you remember coming here with the rest of us ?"

Samantha had to think about that: her memory seemed very disorganised. Finally she felt sure enough to say "yes".

"You tried to leave - where were you going ?"

"I had to go to see my Watcher - where is she, please ?"

"You'll see her soon." Giles regretted the lie, but he felt sosure that they were on the verge of the important discoveries. "Now, whatwere you and your Watcher going to do ?"

Most of the next ten minutes meant nothing to anyone apart fromGiles and Willow, and little, frankly, to the wiccan, although she was able to catch some key words. Words she would, as frankly, rather not have heard (or, to be more exact, to have known the significance of).

So far as Samantha Rose was concerned, it all felt slightly unreal, although again and again there was the awareness that there were things that she ought to be doing.  

She was aware of questions being asked, and answers required, but she wasn't certain, any more, of what it all meant. And it was so dark - it didn't help her to stay awake .

"Samantha, can you hear me ?"

"Giles - we can't wait any longer. She's out of it."

 

It was a valid point of view. Every minute they spent trying to extract information from Samantha was a minute lost to stopping Quentin Travers.

It was now clear to Giles that Travers had, indeed, been working closely with the Dark Powers - more, that a goodly number of the Watchers' Copuncil, probably the entire Inner Circle, had also been involved in Dark workings and could no longer be trusted.

What Samantha could not tell him, but Giles felt safe in assuming, was that the present preternatural darkness was an advanced manifestation of a potential accrual of Dark power which was to be released in a ceremony that night. Giles suspected that Samantha, and others among the Slayer-trainees, were intended to be a part of that ceremony, although whether assacrifices or as vessels for the Darkness, was not clear.

What was clear was that there was little time and no chance of obtaining further allies. By the time they had convinced anyone at the Hall to listen to them, and to ignore the fact that Giles, Buffy and Faith, all three, had been disowned by the Council - that the Council had "disavowedall knowledge of their activities", time would have elapsed that they simply could not afford to lose.

Giles was certain that Travers would have warded the area of the ceremony, to prevent anyone coming upon it who was not "authorised" to bethere. He would need Willow to break those wards, and Buffy and Faith to do the "business" once they were through. As to Xander and Cordelia, whilst he couldn't, on the spur, think of specific roles for them, his own experiences of them, together with the intermittent reports Wesley Wyndham-Pricehad sent back from L.A., in a spirit of colleaguality, warned him to underestimate neither of them.

He would have felt happier if Samantha had been able to join them, but this room seemed as safe a refuge for her as anywhere else.

 

"All right," he said: "We'll move out. I need to go back to the Library for a couple of books: I could do with Maxtred, and a copy of Pleydell's Studitorium would also be useful."

He glanced round. "Buffy, Cordelia - could you two lead the way and watch out for anyone. Faith, Xander - you bring up the rear. If we get separated, meet up in the front hall. The big door between the suits of armour leads to a coat closet big enough for all of us.

"Willow - what do you still have by way of magical components -herbs and so forth ? . "

Their voices faded and Samantha was left, lying on some cushions, in the darkness.

Silence. Silence and motionlessness. Her heart beat, her lungs breathed gently. 

The darkness drew in, gathering round her, like a blanket, seeping in to caress her flesh and, gently, to probe at her nostrils and mouth.

And, finding access there, to enter.

 

Her eyes blank and black, Samantha Rose moved at the behest of powers far darker than, in her wildest, weirdest, dreams, she had ever imagined.



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