Taking the Sky - Chapter Nine
Title: Taking the Sky
Feedback: ferociouswalrus@yahoo.com or post here
Summary: In the dark days of the battle against The First, Buffy and Willow go on a search across time and meet some unexpected allies.
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Firefly crew, Buffy, Willow
Pairing: Willow/Other
Spoilers/Timeline: through BtVS mid-S7, through "Objects in Space" for Firefly
Disclaimer: All non-original characters herein belong to persons such as Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, UPN, WB, FOX, and so forth, and not me. Nobody's paying me to do this.
Distribution: Mystic Muse
NINE - A DIFFERENT DARKNESS
The next day there was a town meeting to discuss the recent deaths. There had been five of them; it was a violent life out here, and sometimes there were accidents in the mines, but that number was unheard in a smallish town like this one. If there were monsters about, as Buffy claimed, then it seemed to Zoe that the smartest course of action for the crew of Serenity would be to finish gathering the needed supplies, head back to the ship, and take off.
Be that as it may, the smart thing to do and the right thing to do often do not coincide, and neither Zoe nor the Captain had any intention of leaving the townspeople to their own devices. They were gunhands, and they were available. Payment could be discussed later.
It was no surprise that the meeting soon centered upon Buffy, the young, mysterious passenger. She was a professional monster hunter, she said, and though most would look at the girl and doubt it, Zoe believed her. She had the look of a veteran warrior about her, a mixture of world-weariness and resilience, though it was almost unrecognizable on such an unlikely candidate.
Zoe sat in a church pew (as with most towns this size on the Rim, the church doubled as the town hall when large gatherings were required), holding hands with her husband as they watched the girl stand in front of the altar and explain the situation to the populace. Buffy was used to speechifying, it seemed; either that or she had a natural talent for it.
“They can’t survive in the daylight,” Buffy explained, her voice raised to reach those in the back of the church. “The vampire must have a lair of some kind, somewhere it can go to during the day where it would be safe from the sun. Can anybody think of anywhere like that?”
Everyone in the church began talking at once, all telling the girl what she should already have known.
“The mines, right, duh,” Buffy said, raising her hands to signal that she had gotten the message.
“You know,” Wash whispered in Zoe’s ear, “I always knew this was where the two of us would end up. Sweaty, clasped hands, church pew, vampire raiding parties. My dream of married bliss is finally fulfilled.”
With a wide smile, Zoe pushed him away. “I don’t even know where to start with you.”
“All right then,” Buffy was announcing from her spot in front, “I’ll dust your bad guy for you…” Originally, that might have been it, but Zoe was watching the girl, and saw her have a small moment of decision before she continued. “…and then we can discuss payment options.”
“Miss, you’re planning to go into the mines after the creature?” said one of the miners. “That hardly seems…”
“Trust me,” Buffy insisted. “I’m a professional. I know what I’m doing.”
“But to go into the mines alone…” someone said. “We don’t even do that when the mine’s open regular. The underground’s dangerous, like to collapse on ya as anything.”
“She won’t be going alone,” Mal announced, standing up from where he had been leaning on the church wall. “We’ll be heading in with the lady. All part of the service.”
“We’ll?” Wash whispered unhappily. He didn’t look any happier when Zoe stood up in silent support of the Captain. She loved her husband very much, but if Mal was going to put himself in harm’s way then she was going to be right there with him.
“Look,” Buffy said, “I know you all want to help, but anybody who tags along on this is just going to be putting themselves in a lot of unnecessary danger.”
“Oh, but that’s the best kind,” Mal replied. Buffy opened her mouth to say something in return, but thought better of it. She nodded and turned back to the waiting townsfolk.
Willow followed Buffy as she walked down the front steps of the church. Behind, the townspeople began to filter out of the meeting.
“So, what happened to ‘you can’t charge people for saving their lives’?” Willow asked.
“First of all, Dawn said that, not me,” Buffy replied.
“But you agreed with her!”
“Second of all, we have to adapt to the situation,” Buffy said. “We need money, badly. The Captain’s right, I can’t keep threatening people and expect it to work. And now our one contact went and got himself killed, so we’re going to have to pay somebody else. Possible several someone elses. We have a service to provide to these people and I intend to get paid for it.”
Willow seemed uncertain. “It just… doesn’t feel right.”
Buffy shrugged. “Angel does it all the time.”
“Miss, may I talk to you a spell?” Buffy turned around to see Shepherd Creary standing behind her.
“Yeah, sure,” she said. Buffy nodded to Willow, who spotted Mal standing nearby and went over to discuss things with him. Buffy turned back to the Shepherd. “I know what you’re going to say, Father, but these things are real. I’ve been dealing with them for a long time.”
“I’m nobody’s father,” the old man said. “And I didn’t come to call you a liar.”
Buffy looked confused. “You didn’t.”
“I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this,” Creary said softly. “This place is my responsibility, but I never thought the chu sheng za jiao de zang huo would come here.”
“You kinda lost me at the end there,” Buffy said, “but I think I got it. You’ve done this before?”
“It was my trade,” he said, perhaps an edge of sadness creeping into his voice. “Until the toll simply rose too high.”
“I hear you there.” Buffy’s eyes widened. “Oh God, you want to come with us, don’t you?”
“I told you, these people are my responsibility, and I need to help protect them.”
Buffy sighed. “Look Fa… Shepherd, I’m sure you were quite the guy in your day. But now it’s kind of… your evening, if you know what I’m saying.”
“I assure you, I am still quite capable,” he said. “Shepherd is not as untaxing an occupation as the populace would have you believe. Also, they’re not going to pay you unless I go along. Seems they have an unusual cautiousness when it comes to strangers with unexplained powers.”
“What?! That’s not even… do you honestly think you’ll be able to help?”
A small smile appeared on Shepherd Creary’s face. “I intend to pitch in however I can.”
“Listen, I have some experience with this kind of thing,” Willow was saying to Mal and Zoe nearby. “You really won’t need those.”
“Let me see if I’m comprehending you correctly,” Mal said. “I’m about to mosey into a dark hole after a gorram monster, and you’re telling me I don’t need a piece?” He gestured to the gun at his hip.
“I know it’s hard to understand,” Willow said slowly, maintaining a friendly tone, “but vampires are sorta… different.”
“Different how?” Zoe asked skeptically.
“They’re immune to bullets, for one thing,” Willow replied.
“Immune you say?” Mal smiled, but not a real smile. It was a smile with a purpose behind it, and it didn’t stay long. “I’ve yet to meet the yi dui rou who was better than the gun fired at ‘im. I’ll take my chances.”
“Not exactly immune.” The three turned to look at Buffy, who had appeared to Mal’s left. “Bullets still hurt them, it’s just that vampires don’t die the way we do. You bring the guns, the most likely thing they’re gonna do is shoot one of us.”
“So… how do we kill ‘em?” Zoe asked.
“Usual,” Buffy told her. “Decapitation, stake to the heart, fire, y’know…”
“A wooden stake?” Mal asked. Buffy nodded, and he scoffed. “Good luck finding one of those in this little corner of the verse. If it’s all the same to you, I’ll stick to metal.”
Buffy shrugged. “Up to you. Just don’t go pointing that thing at me.” Willow made a face. “Or at her,” Buffy added, pointing to her friend.
In the shadow of the church, Shepherd Creary had pulled Shepherd Book aside. “I’m going in with them.”
Book’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Thomas, I…”
Creary held up a hand. “I need you to do something for me.”
Book looked hard at the man. “What is it?”
“If something should happen to me… look after the flock, will you?”
After a moment, Book nodded and embraced his fellow Shepherd.
And so it was that five figures, silhouetted by the small amount of daylight that crept down the shaft into the depths, entered the mines in search of the murderer. Buffy walked in front, armed with a huge rusting pickaxe she had borrowed from a particularly burly miner. Willow, completely weaponless despite Inara’s urging, walked behind with Shepherd Creary. He had produced a small wooden stake from the bottom of a trunk in his quarters and carried it now. Behind walked Mal and Zoe, guns drawn and held at the ready.
They did not have to walk far before what little light there was faded, and the group found themselves enveloped in total darkness.
“I hate to be the one to spoil the party,” Mal said, “but if the present situation holds this little adventure might not end happily.”
“Got it covered,” Buffy told him. “Will?”
After a moment, one could hear the sound of a small bottle breaking on the rock floor. “Fiat Lux!” Willow cried. Immediately a strange illumination, soft and diffuse, filled the tunnel… it didn’t seem to come from anywhere in particular, but the group could see again.
“Oh,” Mal nodded. “That’s better.”
“Very good,” Shepherd Creary told Willow, who managed a small smile.
“It never hurts to come prepared,” she said. “It won’t last forever, though, and I only had room for one extra.”
“I take it you folks do this a lot,” Zoe said.
“You have no idea,” Buffy told her, peeking around a corner. “We have to move fast. Maybe we should split up.”
“Good idea,” Mal said. “Anybody wants to head out into that dark raise your hand.”
“Ya scared?” Buffy asked him.
“Best not ask me that while I’ve got my gun drawn, bao bei.”
The place still seemed dim… this far down, the rock was black, and the floor hadn’t been dug to be flat.
“God, I can’t imagine working down here every day,” Willow said, glancing around at the tunnel.
“And these folk don’t have your nifty lighting trick to fall back on, neither,” Creary said.
Willow felt like the darkness was surrounding her, closing in on her closer than the walls of the tunnel. She had never really thought of herself as claustrophobic; she was a shut-in, used to four small walls. She had almost been disappointed by the surprisingly large size of her college dorm room. But this darkness seemed alien, malevolent. Haven was no haven at all… this wasn’t some frontier version of Earth, it was a different world, in a different galaxy. Even the darkness was different.
Willow almost hit her head on the roof of the tunnel when Zoe fired her gun.
Mal looked furious. “Tsao gao, Zoe, you want to bring this whole gorram place down on our heads?”
“I’m sorry sir,” Zoe said. “I thought I saw something moving.”
“Maybe you did,” Buffy said, though she kept her eyes glued forwards. “Vamps are great at blending in. It’s kind of their thing.”
“But there ain’t nobody there now,” Zoe said. “Nobody human could pull that sort of bian hua.”
Buffy sighed. “Hey, Will, do you get the feeling I’m repeating myself? Because that’s the feeling I’m getting.”
Willow nodded, though it wasn’t the self-assured nod she had meant it to be. She was trying to get her heart rate down, unsuccessfully. What was it that babysitter had taught her, when she was really little? Count backwards from ten… nine… eight… seven… six.
All of a sudden, Willow felt like she was fainting. But it wasn’t her.
“Someone want to tell me what’s happening to the light?” Mal asked.
“The magic’s wearing off,” Buffy said. “Will, can you give us your other dose?”
“One second,” Willow said, reaching into her pocket. She found that the bottle wasn’t quite where she had thought it was. She tried another pocket. Nothing.
The light was almost gone.
“C’mon, girl, we ain’t got all day,” Mal urged.
“Kaylee’s pants have lots of pockets!” Willow complained, panic showing through in her voice.
“She’s trying best she can,” Creary said.
The light faded completely, and the gang found themselves once again immersed in total darkness. “Anybody bring a gorram flashlight?” Zoe asked. She did not sound happy.
Willow frantically searched for her other bottle. She heard the sound of a couple of rocks sent skidding across the tunnel floor.
Then she heard Buffy’s voice. “I hate to hurry you, Will, but…” Willow’s right hand closed around the glass bottle. She pulled it out of whatever pocket she had found it in and fired it to the ground.
“Fiat Lux!”
When the light returned, everyone sighed in relief.
“The vamp’s gotta be around here somewhere,” Buffy said. “These tunnels are only so big.”
“Miss Summers?” Zoe asked.
“Yeah.”
“Where’s the Shepherd?”
Buffy’s eyes widened a little as she glanced around. Shepherd Creary was not to be seen anywhere.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Feedback: ferociouswalrus@yahoo.com or post here
Summary: In the dark days of the battle against The First, Buffy and Willow go on a search across time and meet some unexpected allies.
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Firefly crew, Buffy, Willow
Pairing: Willow/Other
Spoilers/Timeline: through BtVS mid-S7, through "Objects in Space" for Firefly
Disclaimer: All non-original characters herein belong to persons such as Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, UPN, WB, FOX, and so forth, and not me. Nobody's paying me to do this.
Distribution: Mystic Muse
NINE - A DIFFERENT DARKNESS
The next day there was a town meeting to discuss the recent deaths. There had been five of them; it was a violent life out here, and sometimes there were accidents in the mines, but that number was unheard in a smallish town like this one. If there were monsters about, as Buffy claimed, then it seemed to Zoe that the smartest course of action for the crew of Serenity would be to finish gathering the needed supplies, head back to the ship, and take off.
Be that as it may, the smart thing to do and the right thing to do often do not coincide, and neither Zoe nor the Captain had any intention of leaving the townspeople to their own devices. They were gunhands, and they were available. Payment could be discussed later.
It was no surprise that the meeting soon centered upon Buffy, the young, mysterious passenger. She was a professional monster hunter, she said, and though most would look at the girl and doubt it, Zoe believed her. She had the look of a veteran warrior about her, a mixture of world-weariness and resilience, though it was almost unrecognizable on such an unlikely candidate.
Zoe sat in a church pew (as with most towns this size on the Rim, the church doubled as the town hall when large gatherings were required), holding hands with her husband as they watched the girl stand in front of the altar and explain the situation to the populace. Buffy was used to speechifying, it seemed; either that or she had a natural talent for it.
“They can’t survive in the daylight,” Buffy explained, her voice raised to reach those in the back of the church. “The vampire must have a lair of some kind, somewhere it can go to during the day where it would be safe from the sun. Can anybody think of anywhere like that?”
Everyone in the church began talking at once, all telling the girl what she should already have known.
“The mines, right, duh,” Buffy said, raising her hands to signal that she had gotten the message.
“You know,” Wash whispered in Zoe’s ear, “I always knew this was where the two of us would end up. Sweaty, clasped hands, church pew, vampire raiding parties. My dream of married bliss is finally fulfilled.”
With a wide smile, Zoe pushed him away. “I don’t even know where to start with you.”
“All right then,” Buffy was announcing from her spot in front, “I’ll dust your bad guy for you…” Originally, that might have been it, but Zoe was watching the girl, and saw her have a small moment of decision before she continued. “…and then we can discuss payment options.”
“Miss, you’re planning to go into the mines after the creature?” said one of the miners. “That hardly seems…”
“Trust me,” Buffy insisted. “I’m a professional. I know what I’m doing.”
“But to go into the mines alone…” someone said. “We don’t even do that when the mine’s open regular. The underground’s dangerous, like to collapse on ya as anything.”
“She won’t be going alone,” Mal announced, standing up from where he had been leaning on the church wall. “We’ll be heading in with the lady. All part of the service.”
“We’ll?” Wash whispered unhappily. He didn’t look any happier when Zoe stood up in silent support of the Captain. She loved her husband very much, but if Mal was going to put himself in harm’s way then she was going to be right there with him.
“Look,” Buffy said, “I know you all want to help, but anybody who tags along on this is just going to be putting themselves in a lot of unnecessary danger.”
“Oh, but that’s the best kind,” Mal replied. Buffy opened her mouth to say something in return, but thought better of it. She nodded and turned back to the waiting townsfolk.
Willow followed Buffy as she walked down the front steps of the church. Behind, the townspeople began to filter out of the meeting.
“So, what happened to ‘you can’t charge people for saving their lives’?” Willow asked.
“First of all, Dawn said that, not me,” Buffy replied.
“But you agreed with her!”
“Second of all, we have to adapt to the situation,” Buffy said. “We need money, badly. The Captain’s right, I can’t keep threatening people and expect it to work. And now our one contact went and got himself killed, so we’re going to have to pay somebody else. Possible several someone elses. We have a service to provide to these people and I intend to get paid for it.”
Willow seemed uncertain. “It just… doesn’t feel right.”
Buffy shrugged. “Angel does it all the time.”
“Miss, may I talk to you a spell?” Buffy turned around to see Shepherd Creary standing behind her.
“Yeah, sure,” she said. Buffy nodded to Willow, who spotted Mal standing nearby and went over to discuss things with him. Buffy turned back to the Shepherd. “I know what you’re going to say, Father, but these things are real. I’ve been dealing with them for a long time.”
“I’m nobody’s father,” the old man said. “And I didn’t come to call you a liar.”
Buffy looked confused. “You didn’t.”
“I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this,” Creary said softly. “This place is my responsibility, but I never thought the chu sheng za jiao de zang huo would come here.”
“You kinda lost me at the end there,” Buffy said, “but I think I got it. You’ve done this before?”
“It was my trade,” he said, perhaps an edge of sadness creeping into his voice. “Until the toll simply rose too high.”
“I hear you there.” Buffy’s eyes widened. “Oh God, you want to come with us, don’t you?”
“I told you, these people are my responsibility, and I need to help protect them.”
Buffy sighed. “Look Fa… Shepherd, I’m sure you were quite the guy in your day. But now it’s kind of… your evening, if you know what I’m saying.”
“I assure you, I am still quite capable,” he said. “Shepherd is not as untaxing an occupation as the populace would have you believe. Also, they’re not going to pay you unless I go along. Seems they have an unusual cautiousness when it comes to strangers with unexplained powers.”
“What?! That’s not even… do you honestly think you’ll be able to help?”
A small smile appeared on Shepherd Creary’s face. “I intend to pitch in however I can.”
“Listen, I have some experience with this kind of thing,” Willow was saying to Mal and Zoe nearby. “You really won’t need those.”
“Let me see if I’m comprehending you correctly,” Mal said. “I’m about to mosey into a dark hole after a gorram monster, and you’re telling me I don’t need a piece?” He gestured to the gun at his hip.
“I know it’s hard to understand,” Willow said slowly, maintaining a friendly tone, “but vampires are sorta… different.”
“Different how?” Zoe asked skeptically.
“They’re immune to bullets, for one thing,” Willow replied.
“Immune you say?” Mal smiled, but not a real smile. It was a smile with a purpose behind it, and it didn’t stay long. “I’ve yet to meet the yi dui rou who was better than the gun fired at ‘im. I’ll take my chances.”
“Not exactly immune.” The three turned to look at Buffy, who had appeared to Mal’s left. “Bullets still hurt them, it’s just that vampires don’t die the way we do. You bring the guns, the most likely thing they’re gonna do is shoot one of us.”
“So… how do we kill ‘em?” Zoe asked.
“Usual,” Buffy told her. “Decapitation, stake to the heart, fire, y’know…”
“A wooden stake?” Mal asked. Buffy nodded, and he scoffed. “Good luck finding one of those in this little corner of the verse. If it’s all the same to you, I’ll stick to metal.”
Buffy shrugged. “Up to you. Just don’t go pointing that thing at me.” Willow made a face. “Or at her,” Buffy added, pointing to her friend.
In the shadow of the church, Shepherd Creary had pulled Shepherd Book aside. “I’m going in with them.”
Book’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Thomas, I…”
Creary held up a hand. “I need you to do something for me.”
Book looked hard at the man. “What is it?”
“If something should happen to me… look after the flock, will you?”
After a moment, Book nodded and embraced his fellow Shepherd.
And so it was that five figures, silhouetted by the small amount of daylight that crept down the shaft into the depths, entered the mines in search of the murderer. Buffy walked in front, armed with a huge rusting pickaxe she had borrowed from a particularly burly miner. Willow, completely weaponless despite Inara’s urging, walked behind with Shepherd Creary. He had produced a small wooden stake from the bottom of a trunk in his quarters and carried it now. Behind walked Mal and Zoe, guns drawn and held at the ready.
They did not have to walk far before what little light there was faded, and the group found themselves enveloped in total darkness.
“I hate to be the one to spoil the party,” Mal said, “but if the present situation holds this little adventure might not end happily.”
“Got it covered,” Buffy told him. “Will?”
After a moment, one could hear the sound of a small bottle breaking on the rock floor. “Fiat Lux!” Willow cried. Immediately a strange illumination, soft and diffuse, filled the tunnel… it didn’t seem to come from anywhere in particular, but the group could see again.
“Oh,” Mal nodded. “That’s better.”
“Very good,” Shepherd Creary told Willow, who managed a small smile.
“It never hurts to come prepared,” she said. “It won’t last forever, though, and I only had room for one extra.”
“I take it you folks do this a lot,” Zoe said.
“You have no idea,” Buffy told her, peeking around a corner. “We have to move fast. Maybe we should split up.”
“Good idea,” Mal said. “Anybody wants to head out into that dark raise your hand.”
“Ya scared?” Buffy asked him.
“Best not ask me that while I’ve got my gun drawn, bao bei.”
The place still seemed dim… this far down, the rock was black, and the floor hadn’t been dug to be flat.
“God, I can’t imagine working down here every day,” Willow said, glancing around at the tunnel.
“And these folk don’t have your nifty lighting trick to fall back on, neither,” Creary said.
Willow felt like the darkness was surrounding her, closing in on her closer than the walls of the tunnel. She had never really thought of herself as claustrophobic; she was a shut-in, used to four small walls. She had almost been disappointed by the surprisingly large size of her college dorm room. But this darkness seemed alien, malevolent. Haven was no haven at all… this wasn’t some frontier version of Earth, it was a different world, in a different galaxy. Even the darkness was different.
Willow almost hit her head on the roof of the tunnel when Zoe fired her gun.
Mal looked furious. “Tsao gao, Zoe, you want to bring this whole gorram place down on our heads?”
“I’m sorry sir,” Zoe said. “I thought I saw something moving.”
“Maybe you did,” Buffy said, though she kept her eyes glued forwards. “Vamps are great at blending in. It’s kind of their thing.”
“But there ain’t nobody there now,” Zoe said. “Nobody human could pull that sort of bian hua.”
Buffy sighed. “Hey, Will, do you get the feeling I’m repeating myself? Because that’s the feeling I’m getting.”
Willow nodded, though it wasn’t the self-assured nod she had meant it to be. She was trying to get her heart rate down, unsuccessfully. What was it that babysitter had taught her, when she was really little? Count backwards from ten… nine… eight… seven… six.
All of a sudden, Willow felt like she was fainting. But it wasn’t her.
“Someone want to tell me what’s happening to the light?” Mal asked.
“The magic’s wearing off,” Buffy said. “Will, can you give us your other dose?”
“One second,” Willow said, reaching into her pocket. She found that the bottle wasn’t quite where she had thought it was. She tried another pocket. Nothing.
The light was almost gone.
“C’mon, girl, we ain’t got all day,” Mal urged.
“Kaylee’s pants have lots of pockets!” Willow complained, panic showing through in her voice.
“She’s trying best she can,” Creary said.
The light faded completely, and the gang found themselves once again immersed in total darkness. “Anybody bring a gorram flashlight?” Zoe asked. She did not sound happy.
Willow frantically searched for her other bottle. She heard the sound of a couple of rocks sent skidding across the tunnel floor.
Then she heard Buffy’s voice. “I hate to hurry you, Will, but…” Willow’s right hand closed around the glass bottle. She pulled it out of whatever pocket she had found it in and fired it to the ground.
“Fiat Lux!”
When the light returned, everyone sighed in relief.
“The vamp’s gotta be around here somewhere,” Buffy said. “These tunnels are only so big.”
“Miss Summers?” Zoe asked.
“Yeah.”
“Where’s the Shepherd?”
Buffy’s eyes widened a little as she glanced around. Shepherd Creary was not to be seen anywhere.
TO BE CONTINUED...