Thank you LadyForAsh for your beautiful beta job! Thoughts are in ‘single quotes.’
Violence warning

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Chapter 10 – The Turok-Han


Spike and Buffy with scythe in hand, made a trip to the school that evening as soon as the sun went down. They were hunting uber vamps, and felt the school was likely the best place to find them, since it rested over the Hellmouth. Giles accompanied them to study their new strengths and powers as they fought.

Willow and Dawn settled into research mode, continuing to try to learn anything available about the scythe and amulet, and their potential powers. Clem was spending the night with them before returning to San Francisco in the morning, and Dawn pulled him into the research session. Comfortable with each other again, Faith and Robin took those potentials that didn't have sick stomachs to patrol the streets and graveyards.

Andrew sat with his head over the toilet bowl; sure he'd have to spend the night there. It had been so long since he'd had beer that he'd shown no discretion at all, vying with Xander to drink the most. As the more experienced drinker, Xander won hands down, though he didn't feel a lot better than Andrew did at the moment.

That left the hung over and overindulged to the dubious nursing skills and tender mercies of Anya, who scanned the miserable creatures unsympathetically and pronounced, "You've all poisoned yourselves and deserve your fates." She scooped Xander and Andrew up and manhandled them out the door, telling the rest of them, "the three of us are going to the hospital to scrounge nausea medicine and Tylenol for tonight, and dressing supplies for after the big fight. Many of you will be dead or dying then, instead of just feeling like you want to and we'll need all the supplies we can get."

As Buffy and company arrived at the school, the lights went out all over town. The folk at the power plant had finally fled. That left searching through the halls and rooms of the school in the dark, but other than the stray ordinary vampire, easily dusted, their search was in vain. Buffy marveled again with Giles about her night vision. Turning to Spike she commented, "Man, you vamps really have an unfair advantage there."

He replied with a smirk as he glided silently through the shadows, "Predators have a lot of unfair advantages, love; speed, strength, heightened senses, night vision, stealth. You're the supreme predator yourself now." Not commenting, Buffy silently admired the wiry strength and smooth grace of her own supreme predator as he stalked his prey -- other predators.

They finally found success in the basement, where they disturbed a nest of Turok-Han that had set up camp to the side of the Seal. Twenty of them looked up as the three entered the room. The uber vamps grinned confidently, sure that here was an easy meal. Giles backed into a corner with a flame thrower in case he was needed. He knew he'd have no chance with stake or sword. They'd already determined that crosses and holy water were useless against the uber vamps when Buffy had fought one a few weeks ago. After the beating she'd taken initially, and the difficult time she'd had killing that one, Giles was anxious to see what difference their increased powers made. Buffy and Spike took up positions in front of him and the battle began.

Spike stepped up to the first one and attempted to slice through its neck with his sword. The blade shattered on vertebrae and it roared with pain but kept coming. Dodging aside from its grasping claws, he grabbed his battle ax and swept it cleanly through the neck. The dust flew and the other vampires stared in shock for a moment before howling with rage and attacking in force.

Buffy staked the next one, but the stake wasn't strong enough, and shattered on its breastbone. It lifted her and threw her against a wooden beam, splintering it. "You broke Mr. Pointy!" She exclaimed as she stood up, and hefting a six foot section of the beam, rammed it all the way through the uber vamp, causing a cloud of dust to fly. Grabbing her scythe, she slashed and staked her way through them. The scythe worked wonderfully. With her new strength and speed she was able to slay them as easily as she had done modern vampires with regular slayer strength.

Meanwhile, with the ax in one hand and a sword that Giles had spelled with strength in the other, Spike spun, kicked and hacked his way through the ancient vampires. A huge grin on his game face, he whooped and hollered and generally enjoyed himself.

Buffy laughed at his foolery, and relaxed into it. She admitted for the first time since her ill fated "want, take, have" night with Faith so long ago, that she could have fun while slaying. Spike had brought life back into her calling. Laughing and whooping herself, she finally understood his love affair with violence.

"You've ruined me, William the Bloody!" She yelled while kicking backwards to knock a vamp flying, swinging the scythe to chop off a reaching arm and staking a third with the wooden point on the backstroke. "I'll never again be a stuck up tight ass with no sense of fun; pouting and whining and feeling the burden of my slayerness!" When she and Spike were immersed in the blood vision, she had witnessed first hand Spike and Faith's interaction during Faith's body swap. She finally knew for sure what had happened between them.

Spike laughed with glee at her reference as he toyed with another vamp by using its face as a punching bag. He quipped back, "Told you, Slayer, that you were missing out on all the fun in the work place! Fists and Fangs, there's nothing like them!"

After giving the prehistoric vampire a few more satisfying cuffs, he sobered. "Not much of a wedding night for you, though, lamb, I'm sorry," Spike added as he punched his fist into the Turok-Han's chest and ripped out the heart. It stared in shock at him as he crushed its heart in his hand; then finally dusted as he shrugged and thrust his stake into the pulped mass.

"I had my wedding night this afternoon, babe." Buffy replied as she swung the scythe and smoothly chopped another one in half across the abdomen. As the two halves sprayed blood and internal organs, they crawled towards each other, and she sliced the head off. It dusted. "Tonight will be frosting on the cake."

Giles was feeling rather ill after observing the pair's tests to see what it took to kill the Turok-Han. They were enjoying the investigation rather too much, in his opinion. "Get with the program, you two, quit playing around and be serious," he chided. The ancient vampires were frighteningly hard to slay. Luckily the mated duo was up to the task.

Giles was amazed at the speed with which they moved. At times they actually blurred as they twisted and turned, vaulted and somersaulted, attacked and feinted. The power behind their punches and kicks was astounding. He shook his head as Spike kicked a vamp across the room and it slammed against the wall fifteen feet above the ground. The Watcher was reminded of Glory and the power behind her blows. Spike followed the vamp and kicked it again as it slid down towards the floor. His foot slammed all the way through it into the wall behind. That took a moment to untangle himself and Buffy laughed at his predicament as the skewered Turok-Han tried to bite him. Spike solved his problem by twisting its head off and freeing himself as the dust settled.

"You'll have to start wearing wooden shoes, Spike, if you're going to stake them with your feet," she laughed.

He just growled and threw back, "Yuk it up, Slayer." Diving into a somersault Spike avoided another vamp that was swinging at his neck with a sword from behind. Jumping up, he vaulted to where he'd dropped his ax and sent it spinning through the air to take the head off the uber vamp that had been threatening his.

Where ordinary slayer strength hadn't been sufficient to stake a Turok-Han hard enough to pierce bone and enter the heart without great difficulty, Giles noted that vampire-mated-slayer strength was. Ordinary stakes and swords weren't strong enough though, they tended to shatter with the force needed to cut through the primordial vampires' sternums. He and Willow would have to spell their entire weapons cache to do the job.

Giles was glad he had joined the Coven himself for a refresher course in magic when he was in England. When they had called him, he'd been reluctant, telling the witches there that he was past spell casting, but they had convinced him that he'd need it here when he came back. They were right. He saw that the sword he had enchanted for Spike was working adequately, though not as neatly as the scythe. Its makers and enchanters exceeded his own level of competence. It was unfortunate there was only one of them.

When there was one Turok-Han left in the room, Buffy pulled Spike aside. "Flame it, Giles," she said. "I want to know if that will kill it." Giles nodded and turned the flame thrower on it. The uber vamp burst into flame and roared in agony, but didn't dust; instead it charged him. Just as Spike and Buffy stepped in with scythe and ax to finish it off before it could grab the weapon from Giles, it suddenly disintegrated into a pile of ash. So, they did burn, though not as quickly as modern vamps. That seemed to be the way of it. With the exception of religious icons, basically the same things killed them; it was just a lot harder to do.

The trio left the basement discussing all they had learned that night. They didn't notice the dead Caleb standing on the Seal and glaring angrily at them as they walked away.

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Giles decreed that they'd better charm all the regular weapons not only with extra strength, but with added power in each thrust or slash. Buffy and Spike were well able to handle the uber vamps. Faith's strength should be adequate with enhanced weapons, but everyone else would be in trouble. Giles hoped Willow and Dawn had come up with something in their research. He and the two girls had a long night ahead of them, for Buffy had decided that tomorrow was to be the showdown with The First. They weren't going to give it any more time to prepare. They couldn't count on it not having seen their fight tonight, and thus knowing about their mating.

Worrying about the potentials, all with latent slayer strength, but not the actuality, Buffy suddenly had an idea. Her ancient Slayer weapon was filled with power. She and Faith could both feel it thrumming through it. She had a powerful witch at her side. Willow could harness the scythe's power, and every potential that could be a Slayer, would be a Slayer now.

After a moment of stunned surprise, Giles exclaimed, "That's outrageous, it flies in the face of everything...and it's bloody brilliant!" He and Buffy began discussing the possibilities. Activating the potentials would give them all a fighting chance against the Turok-Han. The first chance Giles had been able to see for the potentials, they needn't be unprotected after all. Spike listened quietly for a few minutes, and then simply said, "Magic always has consequences. Always."

Buffy turned to him with a frown and asked, "What do you mean? Don't you like my idea, Spike?"

Looking grim, he reiterated, "I mean just what I said, Slayer."

Buffy pouted at him, looking crestfallen, and Spike slipped his arm around her and continued, "It's not that I don't like your idea, pet. Like Watcher said, it's bloody brilliant. But magic always has consequences. Consider them before you mojo on such a massive scale."

Giles looked thoughtful and said, "Yes...having two Slayers in the world weakened the Chosen Line enough to allow The First to start this war...what will turning all potentials into Slayers do to it?"

The Watcher continued to hypothesize. "If we activate all the Potentials, will there be enough magic to call a new Slayer when one is killed? With all the Potentials made Slayers, will there be new Potentials called so that there even is someone to be chosen? Will the new Slayers receive full strength? We don't know very much about the Slayer Demon. Is it perhaps a huge single essence with unlimited resources?...Unlimited seems unlikely since having just 2 Slayers wreaked havoc. Is there one single demon that inhabits Slayer after Slayer, or are there many who can occupy each new Slayer as she is called, as there are many Vampire Demons? And if so, how did having two Slayers at once weaken the line?"

"We need to do some extensive research into the nature of the Slayer Demon before attempting this," Giles concluded with frustration, "and there isn't time for that. We don't know what the consequences would be. We'll have to try to find out the fast way, from Beljoxa's Eye or the Coven. Hopefully one of them will have some insight."

As soon as they arrived home, Giles and Buffy had a quick conference with the other adults. Willow and Dawn turned their research prowess towards "slayerizing the masses" as Buffy called it. Giles made a call to the Coven and asked them to look into it; then he, Buffy, Spike and Clem left to confer with Beljoxa's Eye. Buffy and Spike went to provide protection in the ever more dangerous streets of Sunnydale, and Giles asked the other demon to accompany them because he felt it would be quicker to have Clem open the vortex, in case Spike's soul interfered with the process.

Clem chattered continually as they walked along. Inside he was an accumulation of nerves. He'd left town last week to avoid finding himself in a situation like this. If only he'd gone right after the festivities, he'd be well on his way back to San Francisco by now, he thought. ‘But it was sunset by then, and I was worried about being out alone after dark. Look where that got me; out with the Slayer at night, confronting big scary eyeballs. Great. Just Great.' They arrived in the alleyway that housed the vortex to Beljoxa's Eye without incident, but Clem balked at slicing his own palm. "I'm a little squeamish at the sight of blood you know," he said sheepishly.

"Look away then, mate," said Spike gently, and he took the other's big hand. Clem turned his head away as the vampire raised it to his mouth. Spike's fangs emerged just long enough to make a small slash in the other demon's palm. Clem jerked, and a couple of snakes hissed, but he stood quiescently as Spike closed Clem's fist around the cut and squeezed a few drops of blood onto the ground. "Go on then, you can do it," Spike encouraged him.

Clem flung his bleeding hand out and cried "EK'VOLA MOK'T BELJOXA DO'KAR!" With a blinding flash the portal opened and the four of them pushed their way into the windy vortex.

"Well, who have we here?" asked the giant eye dryly as they struggled up to it, hair blowing and clothing flapping. All smaller eyes on its surface studied Buffy and Spike intently. "So, Slayer, you found a way to negate your disruption of the Chosen Line."

"Huh?" questioned Buffy, clueless.

Staring at Beljoxa's Eye with narrowed eyes, Giles asked more eloquently, "What do you mean?"

"You did it without knowing it would heal the rift? Interesting; by mating with the vampire, you have moved out of the Slayer Line and into the Immortal Line. What appeared to be an irrevocable breach has been sealed. The Chosen Line is stable again."

"So Slayers aren't immortal, after all," concluded the Watcher.

"That is correct. Why have you interrupted my meditations?" Inquired Beljoxa's eye.

"And again I say, huh?" Buffy asked with hands on her hips, impatiently this time.

"I'll explain it after we finish here, Buffy," murmured Giles, turning back to the eye.

Shrugging, she said, "Fine. We came to ask if you know whether anything bad will happen if we activate all the Potentials into Slayers. As they are now, their chances are zilch in the upcoming fight against The First Evil."

The eye shuddered in its holder, all eyes closing for a few seconds; then opening to glare at them with blood red sclera. Are you trying to destroy the Chosen Line yourselves?!?" The Eye slammed them psychically as well as audibly. "Two Slayers weakened it. A multitude? Be gone from me! Such folly needs no answer." The wind in the vortex built up until they were literally blown out through the portal back into the world. It snapped closed behind them.

Holding their aching heads and groaning, they picked themselves up off the ground and dusted off. Buffy said despondently to the others, "So, we're back to square one, I guess. How do we protect the Potentials?"

"We'll spell the weapons. Maybe the Coven will have an idea as well. I'll call them again when we get back," answered Giles as they walked home through the dark streets with throbbing headaches, slumped shoulders and leaden feet. Not even Clem could think of anything cheerful to say.

"Giles," asked Buffy, anxious to hear something positive. "What did the Eye mean by saying that I've healed the breach? That's something good, at least, right?"

Giles automatically entered his instruction mode to answer. "Yes, Buffy, that is actually very good. When the Master killed you, a new Slayer was called. Then when Xander brought you back to life, two living Slayers caused a rift in the Chosen Line, weakening it. That weakness allowed The First Evil to start the war. When you died the second time, the rift was healed, but Willow brought you back, and destabilized the line again. As long as there were two Slayers, the Line remained strained. When you mated with Spike and became immortal, that evidently moved you out of the Slayer Line into the Immortal Line, and the strain was eliminated. The rift is healed, and the Chosen Line is stable again."

During her Watcher's explanation, Buffy had rapidly moved through surprise to a flash of anger again with Willow for pulling her out of Heaven, to unexpectedly feeling hollow and lost. "So I'm not a Slayer anymore?" Buffy asked in a small voice. As much as she'd wished not to be one before, it was a part of her. She'd been the Slayer for seven years and felt a yawning hole open up inside of her at the idea that she wasn't one anymore.

"Yes, you are still a Slayer, Buffy." Giles reassured her. "But now you're more than a Slayer, and no longer have their limitations. You're immortal; you won't grow old and die. It's a separate line, with its own responsibilities in its service to the Powers."

Comforted with the thought that she was still a Slayer, Buffy planned to continue slaying. She knew nothing of being an Immortal. She figured she'd just continue on as before, and if the powers wanted something specific, they'd let her know.

Spike, however was not comforted. "You can't mean that jackass, The Immortal that has tormented Peaches and me down through the years is in the service of the Powers?" He cried, outraged.

Giles cleared his throat, "Yes, well, there are a few bad eggs in every line, I'm sorry to say, though I'm not sure that tormenting the Scourge of Europe could be considered bad."

Spike glowered at him. Just thinking about that immortal wanker made the souled vampire feel extremely testy. "If he's not bad, then why didn't he dust us way back when? He could have, several times over the years," demanded Spike, finding it hard to believe that his old nemesis was a member of a line of warriors for Good.

Feeling impatient, Giles chided, "Consider, Spike. You and Angel were both fated to become Champions for the Light. It wouldn't have furthered the cause of Good to kill you, now would it? On the other hand, The Immortal upset you, kept you off your stride. Perhaps distracting you from wholesale slaughter and provoking you into fighting him instead, were ways that he tried to minimize the damage you did while you were evil." Giles was surprised that Spike hadn't picked that up for himself. The vampire was usually more astute in sensing the motivations of others.

Spike subsided into irritable grumbles, but didn't make any more vocal protests. He didn't like The Immortal's methods, but Rupert's assertions made sense. Spike guessed he had been too emotionally involved to see that possibility. It was a strategy he might have used himself against someone who couldn't be killed but needed to be hindered, he admitted silently.

Buffy put an arm around him and sent comforting thoughts his way, having seen what The Immortal had put him through over the years. She'd have a thing or two to say to the arrogant jerk if she ever met him, and as she'd be around a good long while, she imagined that she probably would meet him eventually.

The phone was ringing as they entered the kitchen. Dawn, Faith, Robin, Andrew and the Scoobies crowded in to hear what they had found out. Nodding to them, the Watcher picked up the receiver and said, "Giles here." He paled and winced at whatever the person on the other end of the line was saying, then answered, "Are you sure, Althea?...but what could she do?...that's not very much to go on...Alright. I'll let them know. Thank you, and please thank the seers for their extra work tonight. Good bye."

As the others looked on anxiously, Giles hung up and removed his glasses, polishing the lenses before returning them to his face. He sighed, and said, "The Coven's seers have confirmed what Beljoxa's Eye told us. They have seen a vision of a reality where we activated the Potentials, and used the amulet to kill the Turok-Han and close the Hellmouth." He glanced significantly at Spike, and then continued, "We appeared to win the war. In making all the Potentials into Slayers, however, the Slayer line was depleted. No new Potentials or Slayers were called as the old ones were killed. Eventually the entire line simply died out. In that reality, The First had won by seeming to lose."

Tbc...