Fic: Stjerneportalen (6/8)
Title: Stjerneportalen - Chapter 06 (Tilbakerapportering)
Author:
mirrored_illusions aka
3am_moonlight
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Stargate Atlantis (TV)
Rating / Timeline: Teen & Up. / Post BtVS, ca. S05 of SGA.
Characters: Buffy Summers, John Sheppard, Teyla Emmagan, Ronon Dex, Rodney McKay, Elizabeth Weir, Evan Lorne, Laura Cadman.
WC: 9, 713 / Complete.
Disclaimer: BtVS belongs to Joss Whedon, the Stargate franchise is the property of whoever holds the copyright.
Other links: AO3 | FF | TtH
A/N 1: Not beta read. Sorry.
A/N 2: This was written for the 2016 Fic-A-Day Challenge over at TwistedShorts on LJ / TtHFanfic.org.
- I'm finally reposting this fic to DW and LJ; it only took two months! Oops?
A/N 3: ‘Stjerneportalen’ is simply a Norwegian translation of ‘the stargate’. ‘Tilbakerapportering’ means ‘debrief’.
Two hours after her hasty return to the city and Buffy was sitting in the conference room along with Major Lorne, Captain Cadman, and Dr. Draum trying to explain to the Civilian Expedition Leader and the Military Commander what had happened.
“We left Atlantis at 8am SAT (Standard Atlantis Time) and arrived on M7A-772 at what appeared to be about an hour before noon. We walked to the Ancient ruins, and Captain Cadman and Summers secured the perimeter. Lt. McKinnon and I took turns guarding Dr. Draum, and about once an hour one of us would switch with Captain Cadman and join Summers on sentry watch.” Lorne summed up the first, normal part of their mission, before he continued with the unusual part of it.
“Around the six hour mark Summers yelled out a warning and then dragged me out of the way of a charging green unicorn-like equine, before she ran over to Lt. McKinnon but she didn’t get there in time to stop one of the other animals from impaling him on its horn.”
“It was bright orange. The horn, I mean.” Buffy could help but interrupt. It didn’t matter that she was in her mid-fifties, there were some occasions where she just could not keep her mouth shut. “Sorry,” she added when both Elizabeth and the two Air Force officers gave her a look which made her feel like she’d been accused of misbehaving in school again. It was an oddly comforting feeling. It also reminded her of an American and less stuffy, and in Elizabeth’s case, female, version of Giles. In triplicate. She smothered a grin at the thought.
Lorne on the other hand chose to ignore her comment and just moved on with his report. “When Summers reached McKinnon she gave him a once over to check for other injuries than the obvious one before she rendered first aid. When she finished she picked him up cautiously and began running towards the Stargate. Before she got to the edge of the ruins she turned half-way around and yelled to me to wait five minutes before sending my code through, and to give her the go-ahead to pass through.”
“Cadman and I lay down cover fire for her while she worked on McKinnon and to scare away any other equines who might decide to join the fray. Dr. Draum was hiding in one of the smaller more or less intact buildings during the episode. Once Summers left we packed up the camp, policed our trash, and then began the trek back to the ‘Gate.”
Elizabeth nodded. “Do any of you know why the… unicorns… decided to attack you?” It was a fair question but not one any of them could answer.
“There were probably about two dozen of them in the forest put together during the time we were there, but those three were the only ones who turned hostile and attacked us.” Off Sheppard’s raised eyebrows Buffy continued, “I was keeping an eye out for trouble but I also listened intently to everything around us. The forest had various animals in it and some of them came and stared at us from time to time. The three unicorns who assaulted us were the fourth group who came and checked us out.”
None of them had seemed to have any kind of ill intent towards her temporary team so she had let them be and instead focused on other things. Obviously this had been a mistake.
Elizabeth nodded more slowly this time, “How were you able to get to the Stargate so fast? By your own admission down in the infirmary it took you less than five minutes to get back here while carrying a highly injured man nearly twice your size, but according to Major Lorne it took him and the rest of the team nearly three quarters of an hour of walking to return.”
Inside Buffy’s head an imaginary Giles looked at her with disappointed eyes before he took off his glasses and cleaned them without comment. Evidently her subconscious had no intention of being helpful with this particular mess. How was she supposed to explain her Slayerness without actually telling them about her Slayerness?
“I am faster and stronger than most humans. It’s how I’ve been able to win all my sparring matches. It’s also how I was able to carry McKinnon that quickly back to Atlantis.” The truth was that she was both stronger and faster than any real human being she had ever met or even heard of. Even among the other Slayers she had been more powerful than any of the others.
Only Kendra and Faith had come even in the vicinity of her power, and that was most likely because they had been Chosen by the Slayer Essence rather than being activated by Willow’s spell. It had come as quite the nasty shock for some of the Potentials-Turned-Slayers to discover that while they now had power it was a weaker, more diluted version of what the Chosen Two had gotten. Of course Buffy had swallowed some of the demon essence which had made the First Slayer, and as such had gotten a major power boost, and both she and Faith had been empowered by the Slayer Activation Spell. Still, the PTS’s were weaker than she had been when she was first Chosen. When she’d discussed it with Faith the other Slayer had agreed with her assessment.
But that was neither here nor there. She couldn’t tell these people any of that, or how she’d become a Slayer in the first place. Which meant evasions and misinformation to cover up the truth so she wouldn’t end up as a guinea pig.
“Are all the humans in your reality like you?” This time it was Sheppard who asked.
“No, we’re a small group of special little snowflakes.” Small had been relative. There had been 2000 of them when Willow activated most of the Potentials, but as they were killed off it became obvious that they were not being replaced by any of the remaining Potentials. Instead the numbers kept dropping until there were only 45 of them left split over all seven continents. There were two in Antarctica, five in South America, ten in North America, and seven each in Africa, Asia, Australia/Oceania, and Europe.
“Besides, I’m 95% certain that my reality doesn’t exist anymore, so it’s irrelevant.” It was dangerous territory for her mind to go to so she tried to deflect. She needed to be alone to go through what the adrenaline high had shook loose.
“Does it really matter? I’m here, McKinnon is going to live according to what little Dr. Beckett was willing to tell us before he kicked us out of his domain, and as long as no one tries to experiment on me or do something else unethical I am willing to help.”
She managed to get them to wrap up the meeting by suggesting that there might’ve been something about the ruins, or rather something in the ruins which reacted to people going near it, and perhaps someone should look into that. She also managed to extract a promise to allow her to accompany Sheppard’s team when they would go back to M7A-772 - or the Unicorn Planet as she called it in her head, once they had a working theory on what it could be and how to counter it.
Finally Buffy was allowed to return to her quarters, closely trailed by her Marine guards.
Author:
mirrored_illusions aka
3am_moonlight
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Stargate Atlantis (TV)
Rating / Timeline: Teen & Up. / Post BtVS, ca. S05 of SGA.
Characters: Buffy Summers, John Sheppard, Teyla Emmagan, Ronon Dex, Rodney McKay, Elizabeth Weir, Evan Lorne, Laura Cadman.
WC: 9, 713 / Complete.
Disclaimer: BtVS belongs to Joss Whedon, the Stargate franchise is the property of whoever holds the copyright.
Other links: AO3 | FF | TtH
A/N 1: Not beta read. Sorry.
A/N 2: This was written for the 2016 Fic-A-Day Challenge over at TwistedShorts on LJ / TtHFanfic.org.
- I'm finally reposting this fic to DW and LJ; it only took two months! Oops?
A/N 3: ‘Stjerneportalen’ is simply a Norwegian translation of ‘the stargate’. ‘Tilbakerapportering’ means ‘debrief’.
Two hours after her hasty return to the city and Buffy was sitting in the conference room along with Major Lorne, Captain Cadman, and Dr. Draum trying to explain to the Civilian Expedition Leader and the Military Commander what had happened.
“We left Atlantis at 8am SAT (Standard Atlantis Time) and arrived on M7A-772 at what appeared to be about an hour before noon. We walked to the Ancient ruins, and Captain Cadman and Summers secured the perimeter. Lt. McKinnon and I took turns guarding Dr. Draum, and about once an hour one of us would switch with Captain Cadman and join Summers on sentry watch.” Lorne summed up the first, normal part of their mission, before he continued with the unusual part of it.
“Around the six hour mark Summers yelled out a warning and then dragged me out of the way of a charging green unicorn-like equine, before she ran over to Lt. McKinnon but she didn’t get there in time to stop one of the other animals from impaling him on its horn.”
“It was bright orange. The horn, I mean.” Buffy could help but interrupt. It didn’t matter that she was in her mid-fifties, there were some occasions where she just could not keep her mouth shut. “Sorry,” she added when both Elizabeth and the two Air Force officers gave her a look which made her feel like she’d been accused of misbehaving in school again. It was an oddly comforting feeling. It also reminded her of an American and less stuffy, and in Elizabeth’s case, female, version of Giles. In triplicate. She smothered a grin at the thought.
Lorne on the other hand chose to ignore her comment and just moved on with his report. “When Summers reached McKinnon she gave him a once over to check for other injuries than the obvious one before she rendered first aid. When she finished she picked him up cautiously and began running towards the Stargate. Before she got to the edge of the ruins she turned half-way around and yelled to me to wait five minutes before sending my code through, and to give her the go-ahead to pass through.”
“Cadman and I lay down cover fire for her while she worked on McKinnon and to scare away any other equines who might decide to join the fray. Dr. Draum was hiding in one of the smaller more or less intact buildings during the episode. Once Summers left we packed up the camp, policed our trash, and then began the trek back to the ‘Gate.”
Elizabeth nodded. “Do any of you know why the… unicorns… decided to attack you?” It was a fair question but not one any of them could answer.
“There were probably about two dozen of them in the forest put together during the time we were there, but those three were the only ones who turned hostile and attacked us.” Off Sheppard’s raised eyebrows Buffy continued, “I was keeping an eye out for trouble but I also listened intently to everything around us. The forest had various animals in it and some of them came and stared at us from time to time. The three unicorns who assaulted us were the fourth group who came and checked us out.”
None of them had seemed to have any kind of ill intent towards her temporary team so she had let them be and instead focused on other things. Obviously this had been a mistake.
Elizabeth nodded more slowly this time, “How were you able to get to the Stargate so fast? By your own admission down in the infirmary it took you less than five minutes to get back here while carrying a highly injured man nearly twice your size, but according to Major Lorne it took him and the rest of the team nearly three quarters of an hour of walking to return.”
Inside Buffy’s head an imaginary Giles looked at her with disappointed eyes before he took off his glasses and cleaned them without comment. Evidently her subconscious had no intention of being helpful with this particular mess. How was she supposed to explain her Slayerness without actually telling them about her Slayerness?
“I am faster and stronger than most humans. It’s how I’ve been able to win all my sparring matches. It’s also how I was able to carry McKinnon that quickly back to Atlantis.” The truth was that she was both stronger and faster than any real human being she had ever met or even heard of. Even among the other Slayers she had been more powerful than any of the others.
Only Kendra and Faith had come even in the vicinity of her power, and that was most likely because they had been Chosen by the Slayer Essence rather than being activated by Willow’s spell. It had come as quite the nasty shock for some of the Potentials-Turned-Slayers to discover that while they now had power it was a weaker, more diluted version of what the Chosen Two had gotten. Of course Buffy had swallowed some of the demon essence which had made the First Slayer, and as such had gotten a major power boost, and both she and Faith had been empowered by the Slayer Activation Spell. Still, the PTS’s were weaker than she had been when she was first Chosen. When she’d discussed it with Faith the other Slayer had agreed with her assessment.
But that was neither here nor there. She couldn’t tell these people any of that, or how she’d become a Slayer in the first place. Which meant evasions and misinformation to cover up the truth so she wouldn’t end up as a guinea pig.
“Are all the humans in your reality like you?” This time it was Sheppard who asked.
“No, we’re a small group of special little snowflakes.” Small had been relative. There had been 2000 of them when Willow activated most of the Potentials, but as they were killed off it became obvious that they were not being replaced by any of the remaining Potentials. Instead the numbers kept dropping until there were only 45 of them left split over all seven continents. There were two in Antarctica, five in South America, ten in North America, and seven each in Africa, Asia, Australia/Oceania, and Europe.
“Besides, I’m 95% certain that my reality doesn’t exist anymore, so it’s irrelevant.” It was dangerous territory for her mind to go to so she tried to deflect. She needed to be alone to go through what the adrenaline high had shook loose.
“Does it really matter? I’m here, McKinnon is going to live according to what little Dr. Beckett was willing to tell us before he kicked us out of his domain, and as long as no one tries to experiment on me or do something else unethical I am willing to help.”
She managed to get them to wrap up the meeting by suggesting that there might’ve been something about the ruins, or rather something in the ruins which reacted to people going near it, and perhaps someone should look into that. She also managed to extract a promise to allow her to accompany Sheppard’s team when they would go back to M7A-772 - or the Unicorn Planet as she called it in her head, once they had a working theory on what it could be and how to counter it.
Finally Buffy was allowed to return to her quarters, closely trailed by her Marine guards.