BtVS: Just Another Day - 6.16 Right Minds
Previous episode here.
After witnessing Alerion devour Hessrina (also known as Nokia or Sharsein, the true demon lord of self-deception) directly in front of their eyes, the Slayer fragments wake up on the floor of their living room with terrible headaches and no memory of anything that happened after Hessrina was devoured. A few stray Initiative agents are also lying around unconscious; Ally directs the others in tying them up and sticking them in a closet where they won't cause trouble. Concerned about the fate of his technomagic now that Nokia is no more, Joey casts around for his cell phone and finds it undamaged yet out of batteries; it seems the magic still works, but the phone now works like any ordinary phone and needs a few hours to charge before it will be operational again. Most concerning of all is the fact that Jack is nowhere to be seen, and his protective Wookiee doll is lying on the floor with all of Teresa's magic gone out of it. Knowing that Alerion has probably grown significantly in power after consuming another true demon, the Slayer fragments are concerned that he may have gone evil again, and Ally insists that they find him right away. After establishing that Jack is nowhere to be found in the house, and being unable to locate him through either the Alerion detection ritual or the Slayer fragment detection device (both seem to be getting interference from an outside source), the Slayer fragments get their weapons together and head out into Teffelsburg proper to find him (with Joey leaving his cell phone behind).
Right away, it's clear that Alerion's actions have had a serious impact on Teffelsburg. The town appears to be in a state of open crisis, with power lines down and fire hydrants bursting, people looting stores and abandoned homes, cars trying desperately to get out of town while loaded down with families and their most prized possessions, and emergency sirens blaring in the distance. Deciding that it's probably best to check the places where Jack has been known to spend time in the past, the Slayer fragments first head for the downtown area of Teffelsburg, which if anything is even more chaotic than the residential areas of town. While approaching the center of town, Teresa nearly falls into a huge chasm that's opened up in the road in front of the Slayer fragments - which, when they look inside of it, contains an abandoned library of books on magic and demons which might even help figure out what Alerion is up to. Apparently it was left behind by some demon who decided that Teffelsburg wasn't really the place to be hanging out at the present moment. Ally briefly considers climbing down into the hole and making a library trip, but eventually decides that the Slayer fragments are just going to have to come back for the books later because finding Jack is much more important.
Leaving the trove of magic books behind, the Slayer fragments head for the Drawbridge, reasoning that as one of Jack's favorite hangouts he might have fled there in a crisis. The Drawbridge seems to have demons inside it, but they've gone to ground and don't exactly want to open the door for the Slayer fragments no matter how much Ally threatens them. Finally she convinces the demons to tell her that Jack isn't at the Drawbridge and nobody has seen him in a few days. Since they sound fairly geniune, Ally lets it go at that and tells the others that the next stop is going to be the Sundown Lanes. By this time, some of the other Slayer fragments (particularly Simon) are getting a little bit frustrated with running all over town in the middle of the night looking for Jack. Simon points out that if Jack has vamped out again, he probably doesn't want to be found and as long as he's not immediately causing problems, it might be better for the Slayer fragments to go to ground themselves for a while and figure out what's going on in a big picture sense. Teresa agrees, but Joey and Jake aren't so sure.
An argument is about to break out when two separate screams, coming from two separate directions, pierce the air. Joey ponders this momentarily and concludes that since several people are screaming to the right, he'd better go there; Teresa follows him, fully expecting the others to accompany the two of them. But Ally runs off in the opposite direction since that scream came from closer to the place where the Slayer fragments currently are, and Simon and Jake accompany her.
Ahead of the others, Joey rounds the corner and sees two young and attractive women being menaced by several threatening-looking (at least to a normal human) vampires. Joey immediately attacks in the most flashy way possible, completely overshadowing Teresa and soaking up the appreciative response of the nearby crowd. But suddenly, Joey (and only Joey) hears a familiar voice calling his name nearby. He risks a glance in that direction and, to his horror, sees Kirsten being dragged into an alley by a vampire! Normally, Joey would drop everything to rescue her, but for some reason, today he doesn't want to give up the approval of so many people. Rather than rescue Kirsten personally, he shouts for two of the onlookers: "Over there! Quickly!" and continues taking down the vampires.
When Joey (with a little help from Teresa and her newly badassified staff) finishes, he dodges the impressed girls long enough to check out the alley where he sent the rest of his adoring public. To Joey's disappointment, one of the onlookers is dead and the other is badly injured, and neither Kirsten nor the vampire who kidnapped her is anywhere to be seen. But Joey doesn't have very long to be concerned until the girls he rescued pull him away from the alley, saying that they're going to get out of town and he should come along because "we could use someone as powerful as you to watch over us." Taken in by their flattery, Joey agrees to accompany them out of town, over Teresa's increasingly loud protestations. But Joey won't listen; he tells Teresa to take care of the injured woman they're leaving behind, and sets out to leave Teffelsburg in the company of his newfound admirers.
Meanwhile, several blocks away, Ally, Jake, and Simon are responding to the quieter but closer screaming that the Slayer fragments just heard. But rather than a person under attack, the source of this noise is a single middle-aged woman shouting a loud lamentation as she stands in front of the shattered windows of the Teffelsburg Historical Society Museum. Ally manages to calm the woman down enough to learn that she is the curator of the museum, and she's upset because in the midst of all the chaos a traveling exhibit of Chinese clay statues has apparently been stolen. On the off chance that this might have something to do with Jack's whereabouts, Ally tells the curator to go home and then, with Jake's help, does a cursory search of the museum. The museum is quite empty, both of statues and of any human or monster, but things of greater value than the statues were not taken. Even stranger, the windows of the museum appear to have been broken from the inside out, and many of the broken pieces of glass that remain around the edges of the windows have traces of clay on them as if the statue scraped past the glass on its way out.
Jake is intrigued by the case of the disappearing statues, and theorizes that something may have animated the statues and sent them out to do its bidding, but Ally thinks it's pointless to spend any more time concerned about this when there is no obvious indication that doing so will lead them to Jack. Jake doesn't stick around to listen to anything else, and takes off on his own. At this point, Simon calls Ally once again on her obsessive Jack search, but Ally still refuses to back down. This time, Simon stands up for himself and says he's not going to run all over town looking for Jack when the group has just split up, the town is possibly literally going to hell, and there are many more pressing matters to attend to. He says he won't stop her from looking for Jack, but nor will he accompany her when there is still more to do. This doesn't bother Ally, and she parts ways with Simon, heading for Neil's house in the hopes that he'll be able to help her.
Having finally divested himself of the rest of the Slayer fragments (a task that he's been trying to accomplish for a while now), Jake decides to take care of something that has concerned him for a long time: the whereabouts of his mother. Since he's not far from Mrs. Rossi's house right now, he decides to walk over there and check in on her. However, the meeting between Jake and his mother does not go quite as well as he might have hoped. At first, Mrs. Rossi won't even believe that Jake is really Jake and not just another false spirit sent to trick her, and little that Jake can say convinces her otherwise. She is holed up in her house waiting for the craziness to pass over, and as long as she stays there, Jake realizes that she's going to have to be safe enough because nothing he says can convince her to change anything about what she's doing or come out to speak to him. Finally, he tells her that he loves her and says good-bye - only to turn around and run directly into two animated clay statues carrying polearms. Jake does his best to fend them off, but he's outmatched and quickly gets knocked unconscious.
Meanwhile, Ally has made her way over to Neil's house. He lets her in and she asks him if he could help in finding Jack. Neil says that he can, but because Teffelsburg is in such a psychically tumultuous state, it will probably take some time - such as an hour or two. Ally says that's okay, and settles down to check out the astral realm with the tattoo while Neil gets to work. She bypasses the crowds of angry and confused spirits that are waiting for her, and heads straight for Alerion's home dimension. In the several seconds of clear viewing she gets before a mass of attacking tentacles chases her away, she sees an army of tens of thousands of demons beginning to mass on the blighted terrain of Alerion's home. The demon is clearly getting ready to make its move, whether the Slayer fragments are prepared or not.
Having been ditched by everyone else, Teresa quickly gets frustrated and decides to spend her time fulfilling vengeance demon wishes around Teffelsburg instead of trying to herd the Slayer fragments back together. After an hour or so of this, she picks up on an intense feeling of anger and frustration and heads in that direction, only to appear in the street directly in front of Simon! The obviously angry and confused Simon explains to Teresa that the Slayer fragments have completely separated in pursuit of their own separate goals, while Simon just wants to get everyone back together to figure out what's going on and why everyone has been acting so erratic and different (for example, Joey would never leave the Slayer fragments, and Ally would never allow her personal goals to get in the way of the big picture). Simon has a theory - that Alerion gaining power has resulted in the Slayer fragment's Slayer aspects being overwhelmed, which would explain their selfish behavior and how it plays to all their dark sides (Ally's single-mindedness, Jake's desire to do everything on his own terms, Joey's need for the approval of others). Since there's no telling when this will stop, Simon insists that he and Teresa stick together from now on, and she agrees that this is probably a good idea. The next order of business, then, is to try to track down the rest of the Slayer fragments. Simon remembers Jake saying that he wanted to go try to find his mother, so the two of them decide that trying to find Jake at Mrs. Rossi's house is probably the best place to begin.
While Teresa and Simon begin their search, Jake wakes up in a familiar room, chained to a wall. He is shocked to recognize it as his former kung fu studio, now inhabited by an army of clay statues and the vampiric Sensei Lu. Seeing that Jake is now awake, Sensei Lu takes some time to monlogue at him, announcing that now that Alerion's return is certain, he will gain favor with his master by using his army of chi-animated statues to attack Neil and turn Fritzie into a vampire - and there's nothing Jake can do about it. Chortling madly, Sensei Lu and his statue army take flight out the front door of the kung fu school, leaving a few statues behind to watch over Jake as he struggles vainly against his bonds.
Teresa and Simon reach Mrs. Rossi's house and see signs of a struggle in the street out front, including two sets of clay footprints leading away from the house. They follow the footprints, a task that is helped when, after walking for a while, they see dozens of clay statues come pouring out of the front door of the kung fu studio. Seeing that Jake is not anywhere in the mess of statues, they burst into the kung fu studio to make with the rescuing. It's a short but brutal battle, with Jake getting his head bashed into the floor by one of the statues while he's trying to get loose from the manacles and Simon getting moderately injured by the other statue's polearm, but the Slayer fragments win out in the end. Jake, surprisingly enough, is quite angry at being rescued and claims that he could have handled it on his own; Teresa isn't successful in convincing him otherwise, but she does get him to spill about what Sensei Lu is planning. Teresa says she's going to go to Neil and warn him via teleportation, but Jake refuses to be taken along - he'd rather walk on his own. Teresa can do nothing but acquiesce.
At roughly the same time, Neil comes out of his psychic trance and tells Ally that he has located Jack. Jack can be found in his old apartment in the sewers - which is a bit of a walk from here, but Ally's gone too far to quit now. She thanks Neil and heads for the sewers.
Moments later, Teresa and Simon bamph into Neil's living room and explain things as quickly as possible. A quick glance outside tells Teresa that the statues are on their way, so she explains everything as quickly as possible and tells Neil that she needs to teleport him and Fritzie to a safe and secret place (in this case, Marie's abandoned house, just to buy some time) as soon as possible. But when Teresa tries to teleport Fritzie, something blocks her and the presence of a glowing red Chinese character that appears on her forehead suggests that it's Sensei Lu's doing. The statues are getting closer. What can Teresa do?
While Teresa is still racking her brain, Simon speaks up. He draws his sword and tells Teresa to take Neil, find the others, and leave him here to protect Fritzie. He knows that with the other Slayer fragments acting like total loose cannons, it has to fall to him to step up and do what they can't. The statues may be able to come into the house, but Sensei Lu can't, which is why Teresa needs to leave to find and fix the others so they can finish Sensei Lu off. Teresa protests that Simon is already hurt, and that trying to stand up to more than 50 of those statues is tantamount to suicide, but Simon knows that there's no other choice. Gone is his previous insecurity about his role and his path, replaced (at least for the moment) with quiet determination. Teresa's arguments run out when she realizes there is no chance of changing Simon's mind. She teleports Neil to Marie's house, sends herself out into the street, and then bamphs away again in search of other Slayer fragments just as Simon's battle begins.
Since Teresa has the best idea of Joey's whereabouts, she decides to go after him first by following the general trajectory that the mob took him in. Joey has been walking along with the crowd and enjoying himself considerably, although the sudden appearance of Tyler and some of his friends from his foster home; apparently, their foster parents got vamped and they want Joey to go and "make things better". Joey says he can't do that, and suggests that Tyler and the other kids just follow him out of town. Tyler is starting to call Joey out on the fact that he's not acting very much like a hero by just running away from all of Teffelsburg's problems when Teresa shows up. She tells Joey that she needs his help and that he needs to come with her, like, now, an idea that he resists quite a lot. So instead, Teresa just teleports him (and Tyler as well) to Ally's vicinity, figuring that the two of them can argue it out together on their way to Jack's apartment. Then Teresa sends herself to Jack's apartment, hoping to get there before Ally makes a mess of things.
From the instant that Teresa enters Jack's apartment, it's clear to her that he's gone evil from the fact that he's got a frightened, sobbing human chained up to his wall. What's more shocking is the fact that that human is Kirsten. Teresa stares dumbly as Jack grins. "Hey, Teresa, good to see you. I was wondering when you'd drop by. I've got something to talk to you about. Isn't that right, Kirsten?" he says, menacing her with a knife.
Kirsten sobs loudly. "Please, Teresa, you have to do whatever Jack says."
"Very good," replies Jack with an evil smile, approaching Kirsten with the knife again. "Now let's work some more..."
"Jack, stop it. What is it you want?" Teresa demands.
"So glad you asked..." Jack proceeds to launch into a fairly insightful analysis of the Slayer fragments' current situation. He confirms Simon's theory that Alerion's increased influence has led to the Slayer fragments shouldering a greater burden of Alerion, and even correctly predicts that "Simon is probably off making some retarded last stand right now while you try to figure out how to get everyone back to the way they used to be". Jack says he has a way to do just that, which will benefit both him and the Slayer fragments. It seems that Jack's connection to Sabrina as the Vessel will allow him to pull the extra Alerion out of the rest of the Slayer fragments and transfer it into his own self. This is irreversible, and will put the Slayer fragments back to normal, but make Jack into his evil self permanently. Teresa doesn't think this is a very good deal until "Jackelus" lets regular Jack out to talk to Teresa about it. Jack tells Teresa that he thinks that this is the only way the Slayer fragments can ever become effectual as a fighting unit again, and that it's only going to be permanent if Ally never gets his soul back. With his soul returned, and Alerion destroyed, Jack will return to normal - but only if Ally can restore his soul before Alerion dies. But Jack says he has faith in Ally and the others to do this, so he wants to do what he can to get them back to normal. Teresa realizes that he's right, and tells him to do what he has to do.
Immediately thereafter, Ally and Joey burst through the door. Ally tries to tackle Jack, only to be turned aside by Teresa's telekinesis. "Sorry, too late," says Jack. "I'll take what's mine now. It's been a pleasure doing business." Black energy flows out of Ally and Joey and into Jack, who then goes invisible - so invisible that even Ally can't see him. The Slayer fragments' behavior has returned to normal, but that doesn't mean the fight is over. Teresa quickly unties Kirsten and sends her to Marie's house for Neil to keep an eye on her, then teleports everyone (Jake included) to the park across from Marie's house.
The battle for Neil's apartment is still raging on, but Simon seems to be holding his own; as Teresa is in the process of explaining what's going on to Ally, a clay statue comes flying out of Neil's window and shatters on the concrete, after which Teresa turns to Ally and says, "By the way, Simon's really mad at you." Sensei Lu is standing on the street in front of the house, prompting Jake to lament how difficult it's going to be to kill the guy. The Slayer fragments are debating what to do when suddenly, Sensei Lu strides forward and calls out to his statues, "I have solved it! If my plow no longer has a handle and a blade, it is no longer a plow! Statues, tear this house apart!" The statues start disassembling Neil's house brick by brick, meaning that the Slayer fragments need to act now if they're going to keep Simon from getting killed.
Surprisingly, now that all of the Slayer fragments are back to working together in unison, Sensei Lu is not nearly the indestructible foe that the Slayer fragments had once feared. Once everybody attacks him at once, he can't stand up against the Slayer fragments for very long.[1] The biggest problem is the clay statues that are guarding him. Joey makes the mistake of focusing all of his attention on Sensei Lu and neglecting the statue that is closest to him; with Joey's attention divided, the statue finds it easy to get through several strikes against Joey with his polearm, one of which connects with Joey's neck. There's a nasty-sounding crack and he hits the ground in a limp pile. It might be a small consolation to Joey to know that none other than Tyler avenges him, by shifting into a wolf and tearing the killer statue apart.
Jake's attention, however, remains completely focused on Sensei Lu. He is the one who strikes the death blow (right in the ass, of course!) and says to Sensei Lu, "Your error was in forgetting the first technique."
"Then the student has truly become the master," says Sensei Lu, and dusts.
With Sensei Lu dead and the statues back to being inanimate, Ally rushes upstairs to check on Simon. He's alive, but beat-up, and almost completely buried under a pile of statues. Meanwhile, the others check on Joey, only to find out that their worst fears have been realized. Joey is dead.[2] Not really knowing what else to do, the Slayer fragments decide to join Neil at Marie's house for now and try to figure out where to go from there.
A tense and angry discussion follows, with Teresa confessing the deal she made with Jack to the others and neither Ally nor Jake being particularly happy about that. But what's done is done, and now all the Slayer fragments can do is to deal with it. After a long debate, the Slayer fragments decide that it's best to leave the Slayer house behind for now since Jack has been invited in, and to squat in an abandoned house where he can't get to them so easily. The Slayer fragments make a quick trip back to their house to collect essentials, then settle in for the long haul along with Neil, Tyler, the traumatized Kirsten, and Joey's body. Things have gone from bad to worse, and as of yet it's not clear how everything is going to resolve.
1 - As in, less than one round. Shortest boss battle ever.
2 - ...OOPS. (He ran out of Drama Points and what can I say, I play rough as a GM.)
After witnessing Alerion devour Hessrina (also known as Nokia or Sharsein, the true demon lord of self-deception) directly in front of their eyes, the Slayer fragments wake up on the floor of their living room with terrible headaches and no memory of anything that happened after Hessrina was devoured. A few stray Initiative agents are also lying around unconscious; Ally directs the others in tying them up and sticking them in a closet where they won't cause trouble. Concerned about the fate of his technomagic now that Nokia is no more, Joey casts around for his cell phone and finds it undamaged yet out of batteries; it seems the magic still works, but the phone now works like any ordinary phone and needs a few hours to charge before it will be operational again. Most concerning of all is the fact that Jack is nowhere to be seen, and his protective Wookiee doll is lying on the floor with all of Teresa's magic gone out of it. Knowing that Alerion has probably grown significantly in power after consuming another true demon, the Slayer fragments are concerned that he may have gone evil again, and Ally insists that they find him right away. After establishing that Jack is nowhere to be found in the house, and being unable to locate him through either the Alerion detection ritual or the Slayer fragment detection device (both seem to be getting interference from an outside source), the Slayer fragments get their weapons together and head out into Teffelsburg proper to find him (with Joey leaving his cell phone behind).
Right away, it's clear that Alerion's actions have had a serious impact on Teffelsburg. The town appears to be in a state of open crisis, with power lines down and fire hydrants bursting, people looting stores and abandoned homes, cars trying desperately to get out of town while loaded down with families and their most prized possessions, and emergency sirens blaring in the distance. Deciding that it's probably best to check the places where Jack has been known to spend time in the past, the Slayer fragments first head for the downtown area of Teffelsburg, which if anything is even more chaotic than the residential areas of town. While approaching the center of town, Teresa nearly falls into a huge chasm that's opened up in the road in front of the Slayer fragments - which, when they look inside of it, contains an abandoned library of books on magic and demons which might even help figure out what Alerion is up to. Apparently it was left behind by some demon who decided that Teffelsburg wasn't really the place to be hanging out at the present moment. Ally briefly considers climbing down into the hole and making a library trip, but eventually decides that the Slayer fragments are just going to have to come back for the books later because finding Jack is much more important.
Leaving the trove of magic books behind, the Slayer fragments head for the Drawbridge, reasoning that as one of Jack's favorite hangouts he might have fled there in a crisis. The Drawbridge seems to have demons inside it, but they've gone to ground and don't exactly want to open the door for the Slayer fragments no matter how much Ally threatens them. Finally she convinces the demons to tell her that Jack isn't at the Drawbridge and nobody has seen him in a few days. Since they sound fairly geniune, Ally lets it go at that and tells the others that the next stop is going to be the Sundown Lanes. By this time, some of the other Slayer fragments (particularly Simon) are getting a little bit frustrated with running all over town in the middle of the night looking for Jack. Simon points out that if Jack has vamped out again, he probably doesn't want to be found and as long as he's not immediately causing problems, it might be better for the Slayer fragments to go to ground themselves for a while and figure out what's going on in a big picture sense. Teresa agrees, but Joey and Jake aren't so sure.
An argument is about to break out when two separate screams, coming from two separate directions, pierce the air. Joey ponders this momentarily and concludes that since several people are screaming to the right, he'd better go there; Teresa follows him, fully expecting the others to accompany the two of them. But Ally runs off in the opposite direction since that scream came from closer to the place where the Slayer fragments currently are, and Simon and Jake accompany her.
Ahead of the others, Joey rounds the corner and sees two young and attractive women being menaced by several threatening-looking (at least to a normal human) vampires. Joey immediately attacks in the most flashy way possible, completely overshadowing Teresa and soaking up the appreciative response of the nearby crowd. But suddenly, Joey (and only Joey) hears a familiar voice calling his name nearby. He risks a glance in that direction and, to his horror, sees Kirsten being dragged into an alley by a vampire! Normally, Joey would drop everything to rescue her, but for some reason, today he doesn't want to give up the approval of so many people. Rather than rescue Kirsten personally, he shouts for two of the onlookers: "Over there! Quickly!" and continues taking down the vampires.
When Joey (with a little help from Teresa and her newly badassified staff) finishes, he dodges the impressed girls long enough to check out the alley where he sent the rest of his adoring public. To Joey's disappointment, one of the onlookers is dead and the other is badly injured, and neither Kirsten nor the vampire who kidnapped her is anywhere to be seen. But Joey doesn't have very long to be concerned until the girls he rescued pull him away from the alley, saying that they're going to get out of town and he should come along because "we could use someone as powerful as you to watch over us." Taken in by their flattery, Joey agrees to accompany them out of town, over Teresa's increasingly loud protestations. But Joey won't listen; he tells Teresa to take care of the injured woman they're leaving behind, and sets out to leave Teffelsburg in the company of his newfound admirers.
Meanwhile, several blocks away, Ally, Jake, and Simon are responding to the quieter but closer screaming that the Slayer fragments just heard. But rather than a person under attack, the source of this noise is a single middle-aged woman shouting a loud lamentation as she stands in front of the shattered windows of the Teffelsburg Historical Society Museum. Ally manages to calm the woman down enough to learn that she is the curator of the museum, and she's upset because in the midst of all the chaos a traveling exhibit of Chinese clay statues has apparently been stolen. On the off chance that this might have something to do with Jack's whereabouts, Ally tells the curator to go home and then, with Jake's help, does a cursory search of the museum. The museum is quite empty, both of statues and of any human or monster, but things of greater value than the statues were not taken. Even stranger, the windows of the museum appear to have been broken from the inside out, and many of the broken pieces of glass that remain around the edges of the windows have traces of clay on them as if the statue scraped past the glass on its way out.
Jake is intrigued by the case of the disappearing statues, and theorizes that something may have animated the statues and sent them out to do its bidding, but Ally thinks it's pointless to spend any more time concerned about this when there is no obvious indication that doing so will lead them to Jack. Jake doesn't stick around to listen to anything else, and takes off on his own. At this point, Simon calls Ally once again on her obsessive Jack search, but Ally still refuses to back down. This time, Simon stands up for himself and says he's not going to run all over town looking for Jack when the group has just split up, the town is possibly literally going to hell, and there are many more pressing matters to attend to. He says he won't stop her from looking for Jack, but nor will he accompany her when there is still more to do. This doesn't bother Ally, and she parts ways with Simon, heading for Neil's house in the hopes that he'll be able to help her.
Having finally divested himself of the rest of the Slayer fragments (a task that he's been trying to accomplish for a while now), Jake decides to take care of something that has concerned him for a long time: the whereabouts of his mother. Since he's not far from Mrs. Rossi's house right now, he decides to walk over there and check in on her. However, the meeting between Jake and his mother does not go quite as well as he might have hoped. At first, Mrs. Rossi won't even believe that Jake is really Jake and not just another false spirit sent to trick her, and little that Jake can say convinces her otherwise. She is holed up in her house waiting for the craziness to pass over, and as long as she stays there, Jake realizes that she's going to have to be safe enough because nothing he says can convince her to change anything about what she's doing or come out to speak to him. Finally, he tells her that he loves her and says good-bye - only to turn around and run directly into two animated clay statues carrying polearms. Jake does his best to fend them off, but he's outmatched and quickly gets knocked unconscious.
Meanwhile, Ally has made her way over to Neil's house. He lets her in and she asks him if he could help in finding Jack. Neil says that he can, but because Teffelsburg is in such a psychically tumultuous state, it will probably take some time - such as an hour or two. Ally says that's okay, and settles down to check out the astral realm with the tattoo while Neil gets to work. She bypasses the crowds of angry and confused spirits that are waiting for her, and heads straight for Alerion's home dimension. In the several seconds of clear viewing she gets before a mass of attacking tentacles chases her away, she sees an army of tens of thousands of demons beginning to mass on the blighted terrain of Alerion's home. The demon is clearly getting ready to make its move, whether the Slayer fragments are prepared or not.
Having been ditched by everyone else, Teresa quickly gets frustrated and decides to spend her time fulfilling vengeance demon wishes around Teffelsburg instead of trying to herd the Slayer fragments back together. After an hour or so of this, she picks up on an intense feeling of anger and frustration and heads in that direction, only to appear in the street directly in front of Simon! The obviously angry and confused Simon explains to Teresa that the Slayer fragments have completely separated in pursuit of their own separate goals, while Simon just wants to get everyone back together to figure out what's going on and why everyone has been acting so erratic and different (for example, Joey would never leave the Slayer fragments, and Ally would never allow her personal goals to get in the way of the big picture). Simon has a theory - that Alerion gaining power has resulted in the Slayer fragment's Slayer aspects being overwhelmed, which would explain their selfish behavior and how it plays to all their dark sides (Ally's single-mindedness, Jake's desire to do everything on his own terms, Joey's need for the approval of others). Since there's no telling when this will stop, Simon insists that he and Teresa stick together from now on, and she agrees that this is probably a good idea. The next order of business, then, is to try to track down the rest of the Slayer fragments. Simon remembers Jake saying that he wanted to go try to find his mother, so the two of them decide that trying to find Jake at Mrs. Rossi's house is probably the best place to begin.
While Teresa and Simon begin their search, Jake wakes up in a familiar room, chained to a wall. He is shocked to recognize it as his former kung fu studio, now inhabited by an army of clay statues and the vampiric Sensei Lu. Seeing that Jake is now awake, Sensei Lu takes some time to monlogue at him, announcing that now that Alerion's return is certain, he will gain favor with his master by using his army of chi-animated statues to attack Neil and turn Fritzie into a vampire - and there's nothing Jake can do about it. Chortling madly, Sensei Lu and his statue army take flight out the front door of the kung fu school, leaving a few statues behind to watch over Jake as he struggles vainly against his bonds.
Teresa and Simon reach Mrs. Rossi's house and see signs of a struggle in the street out front, including two sets of clay footprints leading away from the house. They follow the footprints, a task that is helped when, after walking for a while, they see dozens of clay statues come pouring out of the front door of the kung fu studio. Seeing that Jake is not anywhere in the mess of statues, they burst into the kung fu studio to make with the rescuing. It's a short but brutal battle, with Jake getting his head bashed into the floor by one of the statues while he's trying to get loose from the manacles and Simon getting moderately injured by the other statue's polearm, but the Slayer fragments win out in the end. Jake, surprisingly enough, is quite angry at being rescued and claims that he could have handled it on his own; Teresa isn't successful in convincing him otherwise, but she does get him to spill about what Sensei Lu is planning. Teresa says she's going to go to Neil and warn him via teleportation, but Jake refuses to be taken along - he'd rather walk on his own. Teresa can do nothing but acquiesce.
At roughly the same time, Neil comes out of his psychic trance and tells Ally that he has located Jack. Jack can be found in his old apartment in the sewers - which is a bit of a walk from here, but Ally's gone too far to quit now. She thanks Neil and heads for the sewers.
Moments later, Teresa and Simon bamph into Neil's living room and explain things as quickly as possible. A quick glance outside tells Teresa that the statues are on their way, so she explains everything as quickly as possible and tells Neil that she needs to teleport him and Fritzie to a safe and secret place (in this case, Marie's abandoned house, just to buy some time) as soon as possible. But when Teresa tries to teleport Fritzie, something blocks her and the presence of a glowing red Chinese character that appears on her forehead suggests that it's Sensei Lu's doing. The statues are getting closer. What can Teresa do?
While Teresa is still racking her brain, Simon speaks up. He draws his sword and tells Teresa to take Neil, find the others, and leave him here to protect Fritzie. He knows that with the other Slayer fragments acting like total loose cannons, it has to fall to him to step up and do what they can't. The statues may be able to come into the house, but Sensei Lu can't, which is why Teresa needs to leave to find and fix the others so they can finish Sensei Lu off. Teresa protests that Simon is already hurt, and that trying to stand up to more than 50 of those statues is tantamount to suicide, but Simon knows that there's no other choice. Gone is his previous insecurity about his role and his path, replaced (at least for the moment) with quiet determination. Teresa's arguments run out when she realizes there is no chance of changing Simon's mind. She teleports Neil to Marie's house, sends herself out into the street, and then bamphs away again in search of other Slayer fragments just as Simon's battle begins.
Since Teresa has the best idea of Joey's whereabouts, she decides to go after him first by following the general trajectory that the mob took him in. Joey has been walking along with the crowd and enjoying himself considerably, although the sudden appearance of Tyler and some of his friends from his foster home; apparently, their foster parents got vamped and they want Joey to go and "make things better". Joey says he can't do that, and suggests that Tyler and the other kids just follow him out of town. Tyler is starting to call Joey out on the fact that he's not acting very much like a hero by just running away from all of Teffelsburg's problems when Teresa shows up. She tells Joey that she needs his help and that he needs to come with her, like, now, an idea that he resists quite a lot. So instead, Teresa just teleports him (and Tyler as well) to Ally's vicinity, figuring that the two of them can argue it out together on their way to Jack's apartment. Then Teresa sends herself to Jack's apartment, hoping to get there before Ally makes a mess of things.
From the instant that Teresa enters Jack's apartment, it's clear to her that he's gone evil from the fact that he's got a frightened, sobbing human chained up to his wall. What's more shocking is the fact that that human is Kirsten. Teresa stares dumbly as Jack grins. "Hey, Teresa, good to see you. I was wondering when you'd drop by. I've got something to talk to you about. Isn't that right, Kirsten?" he says, menacing her with a knife.
Kirsten sobs loudly. "Please, Teresa, you have to do whatever Jack says."
"Very good," replies Jack with an evil smile, approaching Kirsten with the knife again. "Now let's work some more..."
"Jack, stop it. What is it you want?" Teresa demands.
"So glad you asked..." Jack proceeds to launch into a fairly insightful analysis of the Slayer fragments' current situation. He confirms Simon's theory that Alerion's increased influence has led to the Slayer fragments shouldering a greater burden of Alerion, and even correctly predicts that "Simon is probably off making some retarded last stand right now while you try to figure out how to get everyone back to the way they used to be". Jack says he has a way to do just that, which will benefit both him and the Slayer fragments. It seems that Jack's connection to Sabrina as the Vessel will allow him to pull the extra Alerion out of the rest of the Slayer fragments and transfer it into his own self. This is irreversible, and will put the Slayer fragments back to normal, but make Jack into his evil self permanently. Teresa doesn't think this is a very good deal until "Jackelus" lets regular Jack out to talk to Teresa about it. Jack tells Teresa that he thinks that this is the only way the Slayer fragments can ever become effectual as a fighting unit again, and that it's only going to be permanent if Ally never gets his soul back. With his soul returned, and Alerion destroyed, Jack will return to normal - but only if Ally can restore his soul before Alerion dies. But Jack says he has faith in Ally and the others to do this, so he wants to do what he can to get them back to normal. Teresa realizes that he's right, and tells him to do what he has to do.
Immediately thereafter, Ally and Joey burst through the door. Ally tries to tackle Jack, only to be turned aside by Teresa's telekinesis. "Sorry, too late," says Jack. "I'll take what's mine now. It's been a pleasure doing business." Black energy flows out of Ally and Joey and into Jack, who then goes invisible - so invisible that even Ally can't see him. The Slayer fragments' behavior has returned to normal, but that doesn't mean the fight is over. Teresa quickly unties Kirsten and sends her to Marie's house for Neil to keep an eye on her, then teleports everyone (Jake included) to the park across from Marie's house.
The battle for Neil's apartment is still raging on, but Simon seems to be holding his own; as Teresa is in the process of explaining what's going on to Ally, a clay statue comes flying out of Neil's window and shatters on the concrete, after which Teresa turns to Ally and says, "By the way, Simon's really mad at you." Sensei Lu is standing on the street in front of the house, prompting Jake to lament how difficult it's going to be to kill the guy. The Slayer fragments are debating what to do when suddenly, Sensei Lu strides forward and calls out to his statues, "I have solved it! If my plow no longer has a handle and a blade, it is no longer a plow! Statues, tear this house apart!" The statues start disassembling Neil's house brick by brick, meaning that the Slayer fragments need to act now if they're going to keep Simon from getting killed.
Surprisingly, now that all of the Slayer fragments are back to working together in unison, Sensei Lu is not nearly the indestructible foe that the Slayer fragments had once feared. Once everybody attacks him at once, he can't stand up against the Slayer fragments for very long.[1] The biggest problem is the clay statues that are guarding him. Joey makes the mistake of focusing all of his attention on Sensei Lu and neglecting the statue that is closest to him; with Joey's attention divided, the statue finds it easy to get through several strikes against Joey with his polearm, one of which connects with Joey's neck. There's a nasty-sounding crack and he hits the ground in a limp pile. It might be a small consolation to Joey to know that none other than Tyler avenges him, by shifting into a wolf and tearing the killer statue apart.
Jake's attention, however, remains completely focused on Sensei Lu. He is the one who strikes the death blow (right in the ass, of course!) and says to Sensei Lu, "Your error was in forgetting the first technique."
"Then the student has truly become the master," says Sensei Lu, and dusts.
With Sensei Lu dead and the statues back to being inanimate, Ally rushes upstairs to check on Simon. He's alive, but beat-up, and almost completely buried under a pile of statues. Meanwhile, the others check on Joey, only to find out that their worst fears have been realized. Joey is dead.[2] Not really knowing what else to do, the Slayer fragments decide to join Neil at Marie's house for now and try to figure out where to go from there.
A tense and angry discussion follows, with Teresa confessing the deal she made with Jack to the others and neither Ally nor Jake being particularly happy about that. But what's done is done, and now all the Slayer fragments can do is to deal with it. After a long debate, the Slayer fragments decide that it's best to leave the Slayer house behind for now since Jack has been invited in, and to squat in an abandoned house where he can't get to them so easily. The Slayer fragments make a quick trip back to their house to collect essentials, then settle in for the long haul along with Neil, Tyler, the traumatized Kirsten, and Joey's body. Things have gone from bad to worse, and as of yet it's not clear how everything is going to resolve.
1 - As in, less than one round. Shortest boss battle ever.
2 - ...OOPS. (He ran out of Drama Points and what can I say, I play rough as a GM.)