[001 ☿] Normal Human Dreams
It's a lovely day at the local park. People are nibbling at ice cream, children are running and laughing, it could be any park anywhere though the people, the kana on a few signs, and the cityscape suggest Japan; specifically, Tokyo
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For her, being helpless as a monster attacks is a definite nightmare. She's on her knees on the shore of the lake, skirt spread out around her, distressed and hands shaking as a knife slips from her fingers. It thumps uselessly on the ground.
"No, no, why isn't my magic working? My magic has to be working! I can't do this, not again! I have to help! Someone--" She hates calling to ask someone to save her, is angry as much as she is scared, but the desperation of the moment overcomes her rational sense.
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There's a body between Willow and the nearest shadows, a body clothed in an odd shirt-skirted uniform, a body connected to a sword. Mercury looks down the length of her sword.
"Your opponent is me!" she tells the creatures.
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Her lips press together in frustration. "This isn't happening," she mutters to herself, then calls out more loudly, "Do you know what this thing is? What's it weak against?"
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"They're lemures; the nightmares of the dead." Willow may recognize the term from myth; though as always, myths change slightly from reality.
She didn't answer their weaknesses; one method was a good as another, with them. They were beatable, by various forms of magic and elemental attacks or even sheer physical strength and weapons. But she was already busy with the next few.
The lemures were not, it turned out, exceedingly strong. The problem was their numbers. They came in groups, waves, swarms.
"Dark Rhapsody!" An ethereal harp shimmered into her hands; she strummed it and the lemures shrieked and howled as the nearest wave dissipated.
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Willow peaked around the rock just in time to see Mercury take out a group with what looked like a water spell. It sparked an idea in her, and she took a deep, steadying breath. Alright, she would try this once more. She wasn't going to sit here, helpless. She had to take care of things now that Buffy was dead, take care of everyone; she couldn't back down ( ... )
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For a moment she half expected the skies to darken, as they would have before Jupiter's Supreme Thunder attack.
But she fights. This isn't time to be distracted or let her guard down. She can demand her answers after the battle. If it takes out some of the enemy... all the better.
Some have gotten too close to her now, and Mercury cuts these with her sword.
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"I never run!" Mercury calls out to Willow, deciding to forget the ever-increasing number of questions for now. "Let's take them out."
She crossed her hands in front of herself, and suddenly ice and hail filled the skies along with Jupiter's lightning, forcing Mercury to confess to herself that the combined attacks had always been much more powerful, more even than the sum of their parts.
Well, better Willow than Jupiter, at least.
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Ongoing internal monologue aside, it wasn't too much longer before the rest of them were disposed of. Willow peeked around her hiding place to check, wary from experience of surprise last minute attacks, and eventually came out into the open. She shook the dirt and grass off her skirt and did a double take now that she had a better, less crazily-dodging-behind-a-boulder glance at Mercury.
"Not that I mean to sound ungrateful or anything, but you... don't look like--" or rather, dress like-- "anyone I've ever seen in Sunnydale. Who are you, exactly?" Did she miss a convention somewhere? A convention of... cosplaying, demon-fighting magic-users? Scarily enough, it was looking likely.
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Short skirted sailor-type uniform.
Yeah, definitely convention type.
However, the girl tossed her head proudly and gave what apparently passed for a formal introduction. "The soldier of Water and Knowledge, Mercury."
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"You said those things were lemures, like from Roman myth?" she went on, clarifying the particulars. She pushed some hair over her shoulder and took a few steps, trying to get a better view around and see if there were any remains left behind. It was strictly from a threat assessment standpoint and not an academic one. "I figured Jupiter would be the god of choice, since his priests ritually cleansed lemures from their temples, so it'd follow that he'd be kinda testy with them." Yes, this is the sort of thing she just happens to know. Long sleepless nights spend researching myriad demonic problems left her with a strange knowledge base.
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And, to be honest, a part of the Soldier of Knowledge appreciated Willow's quick thinking. No wonder the spells had been so effective. Versatile, too.
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The fact that this wasn't true didn't matter: she didn't know that, after all. She forcibly discarded the thought and made herself focus. "Anyway, I'm not a huge Jupiter fan, it was just convenient. I call on whoever I need for the task. It's weird, though. My magic is being funny."
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This world, after all, was very different. There were only a handful of people with power. Adding more power to the mix, so to speak, perhaps that had simply unbalanced things for Willow.
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Willow adjusts fast to new rules, particularly since other dimensions are documented fact where she comes from. Not well known documented fact, but known to her, and something she has some small experience with. The concept itself isn't about to phase her, she's just... not quite there yet. Right now, it all seems slightly weird.
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