Thine Own Self

By Gidgetgirl

Chapter Thirteen

Cordy looked at Lorne, raising one eyebrow in her patented don’t-tell-me-something-else-is-going-to-go-wrong look.

“Don’t shoot, Princess Lolly,” Lorne said, holding his hands up in front of his body. “I’m just the messenger.”

Angel crossed his hands over his chest. “Something tells me this isn’t a message I’m going to want to hear,” he said.

Lorne shrugged and offered the room a half-hearted smile. “It’s not the worst news we’ve ever had,” he said.

“What’s not the worst news?” Hopie asked curiously, looking back over her shoulders mournfully as Connor approached her seesaw to dismantle it.

“Not worst news?” Cale said, mimicking Hopie’s inflection exactly.

Cordy looked down at the children. “Come on,” she said, swooping Hopie into her arms and holding a hand out for Cale. “Let’s get you guys those peanut butter sandwiches while Daddy talks to Uncle Lorne.”

Cale looked at Hopie, his blue eyes round. Hopie nodded and kissed Cordelia soundly on the cheek with a sloppy, little kid smack.

“Don’t forget the raisins, Momma,” she said gravely.

Cordelia shuddered at the thought of a peanut butter and raisin sandwich, but she simply smiled at the children and took them off to fix their snack, wondering what mojo mambo of Hopie’s had Lorne with his panties in a twist.

Angel turned back to Lorne as soon as the children were out of earshot. “How bad is it?” he asked.

“Hopie’s magic won’t work against Ari,” Lorne said. “It’s older than balance magic, older than the great balance thingamajig itself. She’s just sort of out of the balance loop, which means that whatever goes down tonight, Hopie can’t help us.”

“That’s not too bad,” Angel said, relieved. In the next moment, he thought briefly about the fact that they’d all come to rely on Hopie’s magic to get them out of the toughest situations. It wasn’t the worst news ever, but if Hopie’s ancient magical power couldn’t be used against Ari, Willow’s options were going to be severely limited.

Angel’s forehead creased as he realized that they were quite possibly going to be left with only one option.

He didn’t know if Wes would live through the night if Anni didn’t.

“So you’re not going to be able to use the four-year-old to fight evil,” a voice drawled lowly. Dakota pushed past Angel and Lorne and began to descend the stairs into the basement. “Whatever will we do?”

Lorne whistled lowly. That girl had attitude.

Angel said nothing. As he’d learned with Faith long ago, sometimes it was best to say nothing at all.

Connor wasn’t quite so wise. “You just don’t understand about Hopie,” he said.

Dakota smiled a deadly smile at him. She ran her hands along the edge of one of the swords of the seesaw. A tiny drop of blood rose up on her finger tips, and she licked it, slowly.

“What I don’t understand, Shaggy,” she said, “is why you’re playing with a seesaw.”

Connor stared at her.

Dakota snorted. “In your dreams, Junior,” she said, motioning toward the stairs. “I think Gidget wants you back upstairs.” Dakota innocently made a whipping gesture, complete with sound, grinning at Connor.

Connor stared at her. “How’d you know her first name was Gidget?” he asked

Dakota’s mouth dropped open. “You have got to be kidding me,” she said, her voice a bit hoarse. “I was just referring to the oh-so-perkiness of her. The girl’s first name is actually Gidget? I think I’d go by Dawn too.”

“Whatever you say, Lil Faith,” Connor said, leaving the room, seesaw still in tact. Kody gritted her teeth, but once she was alone in the basement, she made quick work of surveying the seesaw. If she wasn’t mistaken, those swords looked nice and sharp, and she had a feeling that she was going to need something of the sharp and pointy variety before night fall.

“Want. Take. Have.” Somehow, the words were beginning to sound hollow to her, but Kody pushed the thought out of her mind.

The metal flashed in front of Maddy’s eyes as Faith, in a blur of motion, took out two of the demon guards at once.

Lindsey, his muscles taut and his shirt torn from the shoulder, plunged a knife into another demon’s heart.

Kendall fought, pushing Joss behind her, as a something she had tentatively identified as a ‘butt-ugly demon’ charged them both. Kendall dodged the spiked arm that came flying toward her face, losing her balance for the instant that allowed the demon’s second left hand to grab her neck and lift her off the ground.

Feet dangling, Kendall gasped for air. A second later, she brought her right leg up against the side of his face. A resounding gong filled the air, and had Kendall been able to breathe, she would have cursed the metallic substance that was oozing from the demon’s gargantuan pores and immediately solidifying.

Behind Kendall, Joss gasped for air, as if she, too, were being strangled.

His hands were gentle on her neck, and little Joscelyn looked at Mr. Travers, her eyes wide. She wished the other girls were here. She wished that she was older, like them, better like them. Mr. Travers had liked the other girls. He’d never liked her, and now she was all alone with him. If only she could make him like her, make them all like her. Then maybe the others would come back, and then she wouldn’t be all alone.

“You’ve always been a disappointment,” Travers said, his breath warm on her small face. For a moment, the fingers tightened and she couldn’t breathe at all. Then he let her go. “You’re pathetic,” he said, smiling. Always smiling.

Joss snapped out of it and launched herself at the demon full force, letting out a strangled cry that sounded inhuman. She didn’t fight like a Potential. There were no well-timed kicks or powerful punches. Joss threw herself at him, digging her nails into what looked like his eyeballs with the ferocity of a rabid animal and sinking her teeth into whatever flesh was available.

The demon dropped Kendall, and the girl managed to regain her weapon. A moment later, the demon was lying dead on the floor, and Joss, drenched in sweat, looked down at the floor.

“You never did fight fair,” Kendall commented.

Joss snorted. “Like you ever do,” she said, thinking of the time she’d spent duct taped to the door. Fighting fair didn’t get you anywhere in life, Joss knew, and she knew also, deep down, that Mr. Travers had been right. She was a pathetic Potential, but she swore to herself, as she did every day, that she wouldn’t always be.

She wiped the demons blood on her jeans, her eyes glazing over just a bit.

“Demon!” Kendall shrieked. “Behind you.” Kendall smiled at the demon, this one less ugly, but with even more appendages than the last one.

In the tradition of witty banter, Kendall faced the demon. “Careful,” she said impishly. “Joss eats demon.”

Oz stroked one hand gently over Kate’s hair. She sat there for a moment, breathing in his smell and just listening to the sound of his heart beat.

After a moment, she sat up.

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes.

Oz shrugged. “It happens,” he said simply.

“Not to me,” Kate said, knowing how proud and foolish the words sounded.

Oz just looked at her, his expression never changing. Somehow, Kate got the feeling that he was slightly bemused in a sensitive type of way. How very odd.

Kate rose, reluctant to leave his arms. Oz stood with her, never saying a word, and for the first time, the silence in the room didn’t feel uncomfortable to Kate. She didn’t feel like filling it with accusations or excuses. It just was.

She shoved her hands in her back pockets in what Oz saw as a very vulnerable motion. “I have to go,” she said.

Oz said nothing. He didn’t need to.

“I don’t care what I have to do,” Kate said, “but that girl, Anni… she’s not going to die. None of them are, not if I can help it.”

“Works for me,” Oz said casually, putting his hand on the small of her back for an elongated moment.

Fred chewed on the edge of her pen, thinking. “There’s not much margin of error here,” she said, “but I think we can do it.”

Willow looked down at her own notes. “As long as we can access the magical juice we need in an instant, it should work.”

“Juice?” Wes asked.

Willow looked at him and nodded. “Technical term,” she said quickly.

“There might be a teensy, weensy problem with that, pop tart,” Lorne said from the doorway.

Everyone turned their attention that way. “Hopie’s magic can’t be used in a balance spell,” Angel said lowly. He looked at Willow. “Do you have enough power to do it on your own?”

Willow wrinkled her brow. Wesley’s hand found hers and squeezed. She squeezed back. Hard.

“I don’t know,” she said, a bit nervously. “I can tap into that kind of power, but I might not be able to… un-tap.” Willow bit her bottom lip, and thinking of Anni, she nodded. “I can try,” she said.

Buffy looked at her. “You can do it, Will,” she said.

“You were a cheerleader, weren’t you, B?” Dakota asked, coming back into the room.

Buffy pushed down her instinctive desire to thoroughly flounce the miniature Faith. Where had she learned to speak like Faith? Honestly, Buffy thought Kody’s Faith-speak was edging on creepy.

“I brought pretties,” Kody said, her voice walking the line between surly and casual. She threw Buffy a sword, and a moment later, she handed her several stakes.

Dakota felt a tug on the bottom of her jeans. She looked down. Hopie stared back up at Kody, reproachfully, as Cale and Cordy entered the room.

“Did you take my seesaw apart?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at the girl who looked an awful lot like her Aunt Faith.

“Sorry kid, those’re the breaks,” Dakota said. She surprised everyone by kneeling down next to Hopie. “Tell you what, Connor will give you a piggy-back ride.”

“Thanks, Bitty Faith,” Hopie said happily and launched herself at Connor’s back, full speed.

Connor glared at Kody, who didn’t even look in his general direction. She was too busy scowling at the fact that she had been demoted from Lil Faith to Bitty Faith.

“Will someone go get Crossbow?” Hopie asked in her cute, little girl voice.

Spike picked up the Crossbow from its spot on the floor next to what appeared to be a drawing of Angel and some hair gel.

“Here you go, Half Bit,” he said.

“You guys ready?” Angel asked. The group nodded silently, and Anni walked over to the weapons case and loaded herself up with stakes. Finally, she picked up two daggers. She stuck one in her belt, and the other she handed to Jordy.

“I may need your help,” she said softly. Anni didn’t know if she was brave enough to do it herself. She took a deep breath and met Wesley’s eyes.

“Never,” he said. “If you kill yourself, so help me, Annabella, I will thrash you within an inch of your life.” No one commented on the ridiculousness of his words.

Fred said nothing about the margin of error for the spell. Somehow, she sensed that it wasn’t the right time.

“Ari’s at a park about five blocks from here,” Anni said, getting a flash of the world as seen through her other half’s eyes. “She knows we’re coming. She’s waiting for us.”

Angel looked around the room, and with a small nod on his part, they were off.

Ari smiled brightly. “Come,” she said in Anni’s voice. “You’re moving like lambs to the slaughter. Better that you bring the feast to me. My pets will be hungry.”

She looked at the horizon. The sun was inching its way down, and darkness was beginning to settle over Los Angeles.

As the fight raged, Lilah walked blithely toward the door. Reaching out, Nic grabbed her hair and threw the woman to the floor.

“I don’t like it when people mess with Maddy,” she said. “And neither do a lot of powerful people in England.”

Lilah stood up, her eyes flashing even as she realized that the odds in this fight were starting to tilt in Lindsey’s favor. “Then I suppose that no one would like the fact that she’s about to die,” Lilah said. “Sorry to leave so abruptly, but you people have a kiddo to save, and I have places to be and hell to raise.” She smiled. “Figuratively of course.”

An instant before she left, Lilah met Faith’s eyes. “And to think there are two of you in this world,” she said. “Your father ought to be castrated.” Faith ducked a blow and stared at Lilah. What exactly was the woman saying?

“I forgot,” Lilah said, “you’re an ignorant little slut. Ask your boy. If he doesn’t know, he at least has a hunch.” With that, the woman walked out the door.

At the side of the room, Maddy was on the floor, pinned to the ground by a brownish-green arm.

Reaching her hands out blindly, Maddy felt a piece of something that felt like glass. Grabbing it in her right hand and feeling a charge of energy, she slashed the glass across the demon’s face as he moved to snap her neck.

Coming up behind them, Nicolaa decapitated the demon in one smooth motion. As she did so, Gunn finished off the demon that Joss and Kendall were fighting, and the room fell silent.

Clay picked his little sister up off the ground and hugged her tightly. “What the hell did you leave the hotel for?” he asked.

“Language, Clayton,” Maddy reminded him, her voice shaking a little. She looked down at her hand. The glass hadn’t cut it. “At least we know these Orbs of Lagassis are good for something,” she said.

Lindsey smiled. “You broke her orb,” he said, remembering that he had been the one to break Lilah’s last priceless paper weight. “Nice move.”

Gunn let out a low whistle. “Check out the work someone did on these statues,” he said. Looking back at the girls, he changed his mind. “On second thought, don’t,” he told them. “This ain’t fit for children.”

“Madeline,” Clay said, and then he paused. “I don’t even want to know,” he finished.

A moment later, the sound of a cell phone ringing filled the air, and Lindsey pulled it out of his pocket. “We’ve got Maddy. Everyone’s all right,” he said. He paused, listening to Cordelia speak on the other end.

“We’re on our way,” he said, hanging up. He looked around the room, his muscles exposed through the tear in his shirt.

“We’re doing the showdown thing with Ari,” he said. “They need all of the backup they can get. If we can’t hold off the vamps while Willow works her spell…” Lindsey trailed off.

“The other options aren’t pretty,” he said.

Gunn looked at the demon bodies and appendages scattered across the floor. “Well that was a nice warm up courtesy of Lilah and Wolfram and Hart,” he said.

“Damn bitch,” Maddy said, her voice heated.

No one chastised the girl for her language. They were all in agreement.

Lorne walked hesitantly up to Kate as the group made its way quickly toward the park. “How about I stay with the little nipper?” he said without preamble. “Fighting’s not really my thing, and he’s still a wee bit young to be in the midst of so many flying stakes. We can just stay at the side lines until Willow needs him for the spell and whatnot.”

Kate swallowed her dislike for all demons for a moment. “Thanks,” she said simply. “Cale baby,” she called, pulling the little boy away from his current state of Hopie worshipping. “Go with the green man,” she said.

Cale looked up at Lorne suspiciously, but after a little coaxing from his mother, Cale took Lorne’s hand.

“Cordy,” Lorne called the instant she got off the phone. “Do you want me to take Hopie too, since she won’t be able to help with the mojo?”

“Not funny,” Hopie said, crossing her arms, Crossbow and all, over her chest. “I can still fight.”

Cordy looked down. “It’s okay,” she said. “Faith’s coming. She won’t let anything happen to Hopie, and honestly, we might need her.” Lorne nodded and picked up Cale.

“Maybe,” Hopie said slowly, “I should go with Uncle Lorne, to make sure nothing happens to Cale.” She looked around at the group en masse. “You have to help babies,” she said.

“Not baby,” Cale said, following the conversation surprisingly well.

“Sometimes babies help us,” Hopie said, skipping over to Lorne, as means of a peace offering toward Cale.

“Not baby,” Cale replied stubbornly.

A moment later, the two children ceased talking, as the sun set below the horizon, and Ari came into view.

“You’re too late,” she said, and Wes had to remind himself that he wasn’t looking at Anni. She was someone else, something else. “The sun has set, and vampires are coming now, from all over, just to be with me. We’re going to devour you.” Her eyes glowed a misty purple, and her voice lowered to a purr.

“And then,” Ari said dreamily, “we’re going to devour the world.”

Willow nodded, and Connor, Dakota, and Chance moved into position. Lorne stepped cautiously toward the spot Fred indicated, Cale in his arms and Hopie, Crossbow and all, at his heels.

Anni walked slowly toward her position, trying to distract Ari’s attention from the others.

Ari threw out her hand, and Chance was thrown several feet in the air and out of position.

Anni withdrew the dagger. “Either way, you die,” she said.

Vampires began filling the park. “Either way,” Ari replied, “they die too.”

The fight broke out then, viciously, as two vampires jumped Spike, and Spike and Angel put on their game faces. The sound of the battle was deafening, and some sort of supernatural wind began beating fiercely at Willow’s face.

Chance struggled to her feet.

Ari moved her arm back. “Touch her again and I slit my throat,” Anni said, bringing the dagger to rest at her throat. “If I bleed, you bleed.”

Ari looked around wildly as Chance got back into position. “You’re bluffing,” she said.

“Try me,” Anni said, nicking her throat a bit with the knife and never taking her eyes off of her other half.

A small trail of blood ran down Ari’s neck, identical to that which ran down Anni’s.

“Anni!” Wes screamed, overcome a moment later by three vampires.

“Bella!” Hopie cried alarmed. Buffy, Xander, Anya, Kate ,and Oz circled around Willow, fighting off the vampires who tried to attack the witch.

A vampire lunged toward Cale, and Hopie promptly shot him with his crossbow. In that moment, Faith, Lindsey, and the others arrived and joined the fight. Faith immediately fought her way toward Hopie. All things said and done, she was the Shansu child’s Champion first and foremost.

Willow’s voice rose in the supernatural wind as Anni calmly watched to see if the spell would work.

The roots of Willow’s hair began to turn dark, and Anni balked.

“Stop!” she yelled.

“I need the power,” Willow said, her voice guttural.

“The baby.” Anni said. She took back the knife, her decision made, just as Faith reached Hopie. Anni wasn’t about to let anything happen to Willow and the baby, not when she knew deep down that the Witch her brother loved didn’t have the kind of power they needed to put Ari back where she had come from.

“No, Bella!” Hopie screamed, powerless to stop the older girl, tears streaming down her baby face even as she shot two more vampires.

Willow kept chanting. She just needed a little more power.

All of a sudden, Faith found herself feeling as if she were on fire.

Bright white beams of light shot out from Faith’s stomach, and from Willow’s, connecting Cale and Connor, Chance and Dakota, Anni and Ari, and freezing Anni’s hand as the dagger sliced open her throat. All around them, vampires stood, frozen to the ground as the light filled the park.

Willow finished chanting, filled with a new power, and a power surge went through the air, knocking all of them to the ground. The dagger flew out of Anni’s hand, and she was lifted by the force of Willow’s spell off of the ground, to face Ari midair.

In the deafening silence, Anni knew that only she could hear Ari’s words. “You would have killed us,” Ari hissed. Seeing the blood on Anni’s neck and feeling it stream down her own, she continued, “You may have.”

“I wasn’t going to let you hurt them,” Anni said, as the two of them began to circle each other midair, neither girl in control of her own body.

“You still don’t understand,” Ari said, a cruel look on her face. “I am you, you are me. We would have killed them, because that’s what we were meant to do, when you and I were one. You’ve felt the darkness, the power, but you were too damn scared to take it. It had nothing to do with making the ‘right’ decision, with choosing to be good. You were afraid of what we could be, and that fear crippled you in the moment of choice.”

“I hate you,” Anni whispered.

“You only hate yourself,” Ari replied, her words lost in the whirlwind as her body was slammed into Anni’s.

The wind subsided, and then there was only one girl, and she fell to the ground, blood still streaming off her neck.

The beams of light, two from Faith’s stomach and one from Willow’s, stopped shining then, and Anni lay motionless on the ground.

All around them, the vampires began to move again, and the warriors threw themselves back into battle.

As they felt the power Ari had held over them disappearing, many of the vampires left, but still, the battle raged on.

Dakota, now free to move, threw herself at vampire and began beating it fiercely, rhythmically.

“Stake it,” Chance yelled, thrusting a stake into a vampire of her own. Dakota continued punching. “Stake it!” Chance yelled again.

After several more punches, Dakota thrust a stake into the vampire. She was surprised at the rush she felt.

Two vamps rushed the demi-Faith, and Dakota found herself overwhelmed. An instant later, Maddy charged in, punching and kicking for all that she was worth, and another girl Dakota didn’t recognize helped Dakota kill off the vampire she was fighting. After the vamp exploded into dust, the girl stood there, motionless for a moment, and Dakota pushed her out of the way to get to Maddy.

All over the park, vampires were fleeing, the sound of their compatriots exploding into dust at an incredible rate providing them great incentive to leave.

As Dakota thrust a stake into the heart of the vamp Maddy was fighting, she realized that the fight was winding down.

Jordy ran to Anni’s side, pressing his hands helplessly over the cut in her neck. Wes ran toward his sister, shoving the young werewolf ruthlessly aside. Ripping off some part of his shirt, Wes wrapped the material around her neck and checked for a pulse.

“God, don’t die on me Anni,” he whispered. His fingers found the pulse. It was light, but steady, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

Anni opened her eyes a bit. “Am I dead?” she asked.

“No,” Wes said fiercely. “You’re not.”

“How?” she asked. Wes shook his head.

“Shhhh. Don’t talk, baby-girl” he said. Jordy crept back to sit at Anni’s other side. \

“How?” the werewolf said for Anni, knowing that she couldn’t say the words herself.

“Sometimes,” Hopie said loudly, a smile in her voice, “babies help us.”

“Is she okay?” Willow asked Wes.

“She’ll have a scar,” Wes said, thinking of the scar he bore at the base of his own neck. “We need to get her to a hospital, but I think her pulse is all right.”

“Hospital might be a good idea,” Faith said. Everyone looked at her. “I think this is the world’s fastest pregnancy,” she said, “because my water just broke.”

“Crazy laser beams will do that for you,” Dakota muttered.

“Yeah, hospital would be of the good,” Willow said, her voice shaky and a little excited.

The others looked at her.

“You too?” Kody asked, feeling as if she were caught in a soap opera.

“It’s all about balance,” Fred said.

“Yeah,” Dakota replied. “I guess it is.” As Lindsey swept Faith off of her feet and Xander helped Willow to keep her balance, Kody turned to the girl next to her.

“Who the hell are you?” she asked, wondering why she felt like she’d never seen the girl who had come to her aid in battle.

“Colette,” the girl said, her voice barely above a whisper. “We met earlier. Don’t feel bad. People always forget about me.” Dakota shrugged. She didn’t actually care overmuch.

They brought chaos with them to the hospital, the whole entourage, including tired and cranky Hopie and Cale, insisting on coming along. The doctor rushed Anni to a room, as they prepared a joint room for Willow and Faith.

“Put me down for a second,” Faith whispered in Lindsey’s ear.

He complied, but issued his wife a strict warning. “Ten seconds and I’m picking you back up,” his said, worry clear in his overprotective-Daddy voice.

“What do you know that I don’t know?” Faith asked him, looking pointedly at Kody.

“I haven’t confirmed it yet,” Lindsey said, “but I have good reason to believe that Dakota’s father is your biological father.”

Kody stared at him. “I always knew my dad was a man-whore,” she muttered.

Faith looked back at Lindsey. “When were you going to tell me?” she asked.

“As soon as I was sure,” Lindsey replied, worry creasing his face.

In a swift motion, Faith tore off his shirt. “It was torn already,” she said with an impish grin, and Lindsey knew that his wife wasn’t letting her trust issues interfere with this day.

“Your ten seconds are up,” Lindsey informed her, sweeping her back into his arms. Faith snuggled down against his bare chest, letting out an outraged scream a moment later as the pains returned.

“How long is this gonna take?” she asked, panting.

“Not long?” Willow suggested hopefully, squeaking a bit as she did.

Dakota looked at Faith, wondering if they really were sisters. “At the rate you’ve been going,” she said finally, “it shouldn’t take long.”

 

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