(Untitled)

[its_what_we_do]

The lights flicker around me, and I raise an eyebrow. I look to Buffy, who is sitting nearby at the conference table. We had been going over the ins and outs of the situation so far, hoping maybe to find some sort of info that would help us get an edge in zombie town. She looks at me quizically

Comments

[rhia_talbot]

As the lights go out, I scream and fall to my knees, covering my head. It's so dark. So damn bloody dark. My legs don't hold me up and I can feel it, smell it, his blood all over me, my God, it's not right. I didn't want this. I don't want to be here. He was a nice man...

"Oh, god... oh, god," I whimper, my hands in my hair. Just hours before it had been smooth and combed and soft and now it's matted with blood that's not my own, and it's just not right, we were going to Los Angeles... and now I'm here and he's dead, Mr. Giles, the Watcher...

"IT'S NOT RIGHT!" I scream, tears slipping down my face. Yesterday I was Rhiannon Talbot, normal girl. Today I am a Slayer and I've seen a man die in the worst way and I'm covered in blood, in a mall in the middle of a zombie town, dead city. Dead. Dead man.

"Help me," I whimper. I fear I'm going mad.

[myworldisgone]

I use the shell's image to get this far, I did not have to be covered in the stench of humanity long to absorb it's tricks. They decieve to survive. They break great water's flow and harness the sun and tell it when to shine even in darkest night. In order to survive, I show a lie to a man inside a great metal monstrosity, great in this world is toy-like in compare to others. I tell him lies with her face, in her voice, so he will grant me passage. He is much easier to convince than the men surrounding my destination with thier small metal weaponry

[its_what_we_do]

The Slayer, a British girl, collapses. She is overwhelmed and frightened, I'd like to attend to her, she has obviously gone through some sort of trauma, but before I can react, the wall explodes in.

While I should be grateful the light from the outside cuts into the darkened room a little, it is a little disconcerting to see that it was a small, meek woman who punctured the wall.

"Where is your leader?! Take me to your king!"

I step forward.

"I'm in charge here, who are you, what do you want?"

I have to put on a front, be brave, for Buffy, for the Slayer on the ground...for my men. But I am terrified. Whatever she was, she was strong...

...and she definitely wasn't a zombie.

She also looked familiar, I'd seen her face before. Photographs, maybe? I review so many files a year, it's hard to say.

Whoever she was, she definitely didn't look like she came to play.

[rhia_talbot]

Just when I think it can't get any worse, the wall collapses. I scream again and scramble across the floor into a corner, where I crouch, hands over my head, peering between my fingers. There is rubble everywhere.

There is a man, and he steps forward. I look at him, and then I look at the person who broke down the wall. And then my heart stops.

It's her.

"DON'T!" I scream, lunging forward and falling on my hands and knees. "She killed him, she'll kill you too, and me, oh god, we have to run!"

[myworldisgone]

My rage is superlative and self-ruling. Someone within these small walls possesed my will and took it as his own, and someone will pay for thier presumption. And in due time, if they do not hand over the saboteur, I shall begin with thier king and work my way down to the tiniest underling. The last word apoun thier reddened quivering lips will be Illyria, god king of all dimensions.

"I'm in charge here, who are you, what do you want?" The boy who steps from them is young, and merely human. What a grave dissapointment.

I have forgotten my shell in my haste, I still wear the face of the one they called Fred when I growl and thunder in his direction.

"I am Illyria, god-king of the primordium, shaper of things, idol of millions, and I shall have your head on a platter if that is my whim!"

[slayful_buffy]

Head on a-- Huh?!

I glance at Riley as he holds his ground, recognising the look in his eyes and knowing it's mirrored in my own. Seven years of demon fighting, of listening to every kind of banter a demon can give off... I was never afraid of it. Had no reason to be. They all said it in one form or another.

But this one? I was officially unsure about, especially seeing the new Slayer and the way she was wigging. Wigging big time.

"Okay," I say, with much more bravado than I feel, "Can we have no heads on platters, please?" Call me crazy, but I don't want my head on a platter. Or Riley's. Or, well, anyone's for that matter

[iwouldnt_fear]

I knew I should have set up closer to headquarters. How am I supposed to be handy if I've got to sprint across the mall everytime there's trouble? Which is what I just got done doing. Whatever was going down made half the building tremor, and killed the power. Since I'd wager zombies aren't smart enough to turn out the lights before eating us, that means we've got a new danger. Hopefully one that'd be funner to kill.

The silence afterward has got me all in a panic. I would have been cool if I'd heard gunshots, or yelling, or even felt more shaking...but I don't like nothing. Nothing is typically the omen of something much much worse.

So I don't knock, I just bust in the door, skidding to a halt and practically tripping over my feet- I notice Riley, two soldiers, a girl splattered in blood, and a blonde that has to be Buffy. why am I so uncool now that it really matters?

who I didn't notice, was a teeny little mousey looking brunette, standing in the rubble. ...Did she knock down that wall?

"Holy Shit."

[its_what_we_do]

My gun is drawn on the waifish woman, it's not as if I expected it to be much help, but I'm a solider, it provided me a little comfort

[rhia_talbot]

I can't believe it. She, her, that creature, kills people, knocks down a wall, and they all stand around talking to it. I stumble to my feet and lean against the wall, my fingernails digging into the paint and chipping. I'm such a mess. But that's not what matters.

"Of course she's dangerous!" I shout, and then laugh, and it sounds hysterical even to my own ears. Rhiannon Talbot, gone mad. Just a few days ago, I was an ordinary girl. Now I've seen things that no one should ever see. That shouldn't even exist.

"She knocked down a wall! She's killed the soldiers! SHE KILLED GILES!"

And I slump against the wall, sobbing. Whose blood did they think it was, all over me, in my hair, all over my clothes, under my nails? His! It's not right, please, make it end... I want to be normal again.

[myworldisgone]

I tire rapidly of thier chatter, I am not here to answer thier insignificant questions. The human male infront of me who claims he is the leader keeps averting his gaze to the diminutive one with the yellow hair. She seems to want to make reason, though I am far past judiciousness. I have traveled a distance, and my only desire is to end my unrest and make suffer the being who caused it.

"You worked with Angel, right?"

I open my mouth to answer, when I remember what I am wearing is a lie. My body changes back to a form more suitable.

"I fought beside the one you call Angel. I saw the wind take his ashes and spread them on the ground." I turn to the boy with the weapon in his hand. "he did not tremble before me, but with anger." A real ruler would not show his fear.

[slayful_buffy]

Know her? Barely. I saw her once at Cordelia's funeral, held up by Wesley-- Although at that point I wasn't sure which of them was doing the holding up.

"...and more importantly, is she dangerous?"

Well she didn't look dangerous. But I wasn't exactly poster-girl for the right way to look when you fought the Grandaddy of all evil or whatever. I was just trying to buy us time, work out how, exactly, one of Angel's friends had gone from nice, normal Texan girl to killing people.

"Of course she's dangerous! She knocked down a wall! She's killed the soldiers!"

I didn't catch her name when she came in. Not that she flung it or anything-- Or if she did, I didn't hear it. But she's hysterical. Crying. Bloody. And a possibly liability if the girl who used to work with Angel really was the one who--

"SHE KILLED GILES!"My attention caught by that last sentence, I turn in time to see Angel's colleague change into something else. Her hair change color, her skin becoming paler. It reminds me of Willow. It's not enough that the new

[iwouldnt_fear]

I haven't moved since I stepped into the room. Surprising judgement for someone like me, for all my training, I'm not much for strategy. But I honestly don't know what to do. Even if I moved, how successful would that prove?

The sarcastic comment from Riley makes me flinch, but not noticeably, atleast. Wouldn't want anyone in the room to assume I had feelings that could be hurt. The comment I shoot back has the same tone.

"well if it makes you feel better, I'm plenty sorry I came."

Sometimes I want to knock on his head to see if anybody's home. This is one of those times. is she dangerous??! She just bulldozed down a wall and left a trail of corpses in her wake. I don't think I'd lose my shirt over wagering that she's dangerous.

Despite that, when the potential threat turns her attentions on Riley and my first instinct is to get bettween her and my friend, whatever the consequences. Lucky Buffy beats me to that notion. I really don't want to know what it feels like to be broken in half.

[its_what_we_do]

Buffy intercepts the path of the now blue woman, and I lower my gun. I still have it ready though, my arm tensed, and my trigger finger more than a little itchy

[rhia_talbot]

Bloody hell. She's a killer, a murderer, and they're all gathered 'round, talking to her as if something like her, a monster, can be talked to. Can be reasoned with. No, she can't, because I saw it, Giles tried. Before she...

Oh god. Leaning against the wall, I moan, raising a hand to my head. Don't think about it, Rhia, just don't. It's not real. It was just a bad dream, you'll wake up back at school, in your bed, you'll be a normal girl...

Except I know that's not true. I push myself away from the wall and stumble over to them. I'm so afraid and hysterical that my legs don't hold me up, and I reach out and cling to the tall guy who's talking. He's big and he has a gun, he'll protect me. Right?

"Tore them all down," I whisper. "Please, she's not safe."

[myworldisgone]

Humans, and thier weak concept of good and evil. How is it that they are so young, so niave, and this world is still thiers

[slayful_buffy]

They Area 50-whatted her? I looked at Riley, not getting the reference. What the hell was he talking about and why wasn't he backing away from her while I was giving him a small, slight window of opportunity to do it?

Not that I thought that I was any match for the Blue Ranger over there, but-- Hell, we had to start getting out of here in case she stopped being as civil as when she broke down the wall and starts killing us. Like she did Giles.

I focus on anything but that and stare at the path of destruction she left behind, listening to Riley's explanation. So they locked her up and made her a guinea pig for a few months and now she's pissed. Fine. Anyone would be. Except it wasn't us who locked her up. That would be the work of one formerly run-by-my-ex law firm. Not us.

"I hold no allegiances. There is simply what is my will, and what is not. I chose to fight for Angel and his kingdom.""So your will is now what? Crush everything in your path, my watcher included?" I'm really eager to hear this one. But I'm also eager