"But they don't know that it's Dawn?"
"No."
Buffy and Giles' voices floated into the living room, getting the attention of the young girl. Dawn inched her way towards the kitchen doorway. They were talking about her, Why were they talking about her?
"I still can't even begin to grasp this," Joyce paused, at a loss for words, the only thing she could think of to say was the only thing she knew in her heart, "She's my little girl."
"It is disorienting." He nodded.
"Giles, what happens if they figure it out?"
"I don't know."
Dawn was now standing very near the doorway. She knew she would get caught, but curiosity held her there. She had to find out what they were talking about, what they knew that she didn't.
"Oh, I can't even think about this. It's too…" She sighed, concerned for her daughter. Joyce looked up and her thoughts halted. "Dawn."
She tried to turn around and just go back to her room but somehow her feet just wouldn't do what she wanted. So instead she walked into the dinning room, "What are you talking about?"
Buffy looked up at her. How could she explain this to her? "Dawn…"
Joyce stood up, and put an arm around her youngest daughter, and pulled out a chair, "I think you better sit down, honey."
Dawn sat down but her defenses went up, "I heard what you said. That it’s disorienting… What are you keeping from me?"
"Do you remember when I told you about Glory?" Buffy asked.
"Yeah," Dawn said slowly, "Big psycho lady, kicked your butt big time?"
"She's looking for a key... er... maybe that's not the best way to start," Buffy continued, "On that show I used to watch with you, Sailor Moon, there was that little girl who everybody thought was Serena's cousin, but she wasn't... she was,"
"Serena and Darien's future daughter." Dawn looked shocked, "I'm your daughter? Does this have something to do with Angel?!"
Buffy shook her head, but then thought about it, nah couldn't be. "Okay, lemme start again, once upon a time in a land far far away, there were these monk dudes and they built a key…"
"The one Glory is looking for?"
"Yeah, but don't worry about that, cause trust me she will never ever ever get to the key or my name isn't Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Anyway this key was made of pure energy, and they sent this key to someone for safekeeping."
Dawn thought she knew where this was going, "Sorry, you made a mistake. See, I don't have a key."
"Dawn…" Buffy gathered her courage, "You are the key."
The young girl stood up, "What are you talking about?!?" She searched her mother's face for some sign that Buffy was lying. Nothing.
Buffy got up from the table and walked over to her, "Dawn, I don't care what you are you'll always be--"
"No! No! You're lying! You're a freak and so you want everyone else to be a freak! Well, I'm not, okay, I am 100% Grade A normal. I'm not a 'key'. I'm a human, I have the birth certificate to prove it! Tell her mom."
"It was all faked," Buffy said, trying to calm her down, but going in the opposite direction.
"Just--just get away from me!" Dawn yelled. Without knowing what she was doing she put her hands up and a bolt of pure energy shot from her palm, which made the whole room glow with an unearthly light. It knocked into Buffy and when the light dimmed, Buffy was lying on the floor semi-unconscious. "Oh, god."
"Now, Dreg, do a good job and bring me back the items on my shopping list," Glory handed him a list of ingredients for a spell.
"Y-yes, your most glorificent," her attendant replied with a bow.
Glory smiled sweetly, "If you mess up, I will be forced to have you terminated, you understand of course, we can't have lax servants running loose. We have a job to do, a mission, a goal, job, conquest, triumph to achieve, task, assignment--" She gasped for air and hit the floor in the middle of her rant. Glory screamed as the pain coursed through her. Dreg bent over her, trying to figure out if he should help her up, and dare touch her highness.
She stopped suddenly as the pain subsided, "What are you waiting for! Help me up!" Dreg bowed and repeated said he was sorry as he offered her his hand. "Just shut up! Besides your apologies will never be enough." She regained her cool as she stood up again, brushing off her red skirt she wore. She spoke through her teeth, trying to control her seething anger, "Someone has used the key."
"Why didn't you follow her?" Buffy looked at her watcher.
"Well-well, I was more concerned about your welfare. You scared me, Buffy." She sighed, and put her hand to her throbbing head. So that's what it felt like to be electrocuted. "Besides, by the time the light had cleared the room and I had regained the ability to see straight, Dawn was had already left."
"Well, we have to find her," She started pacing, "She knows its dangerous in Sunnydale after night. She wasn't even carrying a stake. God, how could I be so stupid. There had to have been a better non-emotionally scaring way to tell her that she wasn't human or geez--"
"Don't worry, honey," Joyce said trying to look on the bright side of things, "We'll find her. And Dawn's a smart girl."
Buffy stopped dead in her pacing tracks. It was time to turn to the other side of herself, the slayer control assuming side, "Right. We will. Giles, you and my mom can go start the search party now. I'll call the rest of the gang, let them know what's going on, get them to help look for her."
"All right," Giles grabbed her car keys and headed out to his car.
Buffy's mom stayed behind for a moment and hugged her daughter, "We'll find her, Buffy."
Buffy sighed, "Right. I know, Mom. Be careful out there."
Joyce snatched a hidden stake from behind a picture frame, there were many scattered around the house. "I will." And she left.
The blond slayer walked into the kitchen and started dialing Xander's phone number.
Dawn wished she had brought a coat with her as she walked down the streets of Sunnydale. It was freezing tonight. But, alas, it had skipped her mind while she was fleeing from, from what, her destiny? She shuddered even more. She had seen what destiny had done to Buffy. Her sister was a wreck. Not that it matter to Dawn, thought, because apparently she didn't even have a sister.
"She's wrong." Dawn muttered as she kicked a rock across the desolate street. How could it be true? She could remember so much about her life, the way things felt. Her used-to-be family. How could emotions like these be faked? It wasn't possible to plant this kind of feeling into a person's mind. The teas of her father's leaving, the isolation of moving to a small little nowhere's-ville town, the fear of what she had grown up watching Buffy face. And all the little moments in-between. They were real, they had to be!
"Little girls shouldn't walk around alone at night," Dawn heard a voice from behind her. Dawn turned to face the person, only to find out it wasn't a person at all. The creature vamped and then it was after her, along with a bunch of its friends, "It's not safe." Dawn let out a earsplitting scream and ran as fast as she could in the opposite direction.
Xander followed Buffy and Willow through the darkened streets of Sunnydale. Anya and Tara had formed a separate group and were currently searching uptown Sunnydale, which was only a few blocks away.
"Okay, so let me get this straight, Dawn is not Dawn but instead she's a source of Monk energy?" Xander was trying to grasp his mind around this new concept. "Are you sure you're not crazy?"
Buffy smiled, "For the fiftieth time, Xander, I am not crazy." If her friends hadn't been with her tonight she may have just gone nuts.
"I'm not sure about that," Xander assumed some mock-seriousness, "You're sure this isn't some sort of weird sibling rivalry?"
"It's just… so strange," Willow said softly, "This is Dawn we're talking about. Dawn. Little Dawn. Kid-Sister Dawn. Girl-Next-Door Dawn." Willow shook her head and twirled her stake in her hand.
"So, everything was faked?" Xander asked incredulously, obviously still not getting passed the news.
Buffy sighed and continued on.
Dawn ran into an old abandoned warehouse and slammed the door shut. The vamps were right behind her, only moments back. One of the vamps pounded into the door, making the teenage girl jump. Dawn screamed as they started pushing the door open.
Without any warning, her hands started giving off electrical sparks. A bolt of lightning vaulted from her small hands and encircled a heavy machine that occupied the middle of the warehouse. The machine was sent hurtling towards the door, slamming it tightly shut.
"What's happening to me?" Dawn looked down at her palms. They had stopped sparking but were still glowing slightly. "I'm going crazy. This town is driving me crazy."
The continued pounding of the vamps on the now blocked door made Dawn realize that she didn't have time to question her sanity. It was much more about her safety at this point.
She looked around her new surroundings. There was a small window on the roof, which hopefully would not be noticed by the creatures that wanted to get inside. On the side of the room she was in there was an empty wooden box. Breaking off a makeshift stake, Dawn held it to herself like a shield. Things were just going from bad to worse tonight.
Glory chucked everything off her ritual table. She had just recovered from another scorching pain resulting from the key, and she was madder than ever. "It's wrong. It's all wrong!"
Dreg took two steps back and grimaced, "We could try the spell again, perhaps it will work if we ---"
"NO!" Glory hit the table hard with the palm of her hand. "None of this is working! We have to find the key; the key is going to destroy everything… Everything… EVERYTHING!" She put her hands to her head and started swaying.
A new person entered the room. Someone Glory had been expecting for quite some time. "Have you felt it too?" He asked.
"Of course, I have!" She turned on him, if she hadn't seen him for all eternity it would have been too soon. "Big brother."
"Leave us, Dreg," Ben told the servant.
And then they were alone. Ben and Glory. Brother and Sister.
Glory transformed her voice to sweetness, trying to convince her brother what she already knew. The only thing that would save them, "We have to find the key, Ben. We have to destroy it!"
"It's not going to help us Glory," He spoke with confidence. He hadn't come to her to make a plan, or do a spell, it was their meddling that had caused this in the first place. After years of living amongst the 'lesser race' he had learned his lesson. Obviously Glory had not. Too bad. It was going to be her downfall, and he was sick of looking after her.
"Oh? And what does the great high commander think we should do?" Glory glared at him.
"We can't hurt her," He said, picking up a glowing orb from the ritual table nonchalantly.
Glory was just about to lose it, "But she can hurt us!"
"Not if I train her. Teach her how to use her power."
"Oh," She laughed pitifully, "Just like you helped me?"
"You abused your power, and now it's abusing you. I can't help that." It wasn't his fault that she hadn't listened to him.
"You talk big. You don't even know who the key is."
He tossed the glowing globe from hand to hand, "No, but I have an idea how to find out."
"Oh? And what am I supposed to do in the meantime? Wait until little miss moppet plays with energy again, so I can get hurt again?"
Ben put the ball down on the table and looked Glory in the eyes, "I really don't care what you do, but, if you hurt her, immortality won't mean a damn thing to you... you'll wish you were dead." He slammed the door behind him as he left her to her thoughts.
In a rage Glory picked up a vial of liquid from the table and threw it towards the door, it shattered into a million pieces, as her rage dissipated. "Let Mr. Know-It-All just try to save that little brat. I mean… just… nobody understands me. What I want…" She whined, "What I need… I need her dead… departed, expired, deceased, defunct, exanimate. Get rid of him too, who needs him? Can't tell me, won't tell me, I'll tell him." She walked back to the ritual table and examined the contents of the spell, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. "Dreg! Get in here!"
"You know, I really don't have time for this tonight," Buffy told the tandem team of vampires that had just approached her.
Xander and Willow held out their stakes, ready to back her up.
"I think you're going to have to make time for us," The big ugly one said, as compared to the short ugly one.
"I really don't think so," Buffy said as she punched the tall one in its face, "Got a tight schedule." She slammed her stake into the short ugly one; it dusted. The tall one grabbed her by her arm, but she miraculously got out of that only seconds later. They must have been just made vamps cause they sure as hell were fighting like it, "Maybe some other time," She sent a kick to Tall One's ribs, "We'll do lunch." She aimed her stake, and drove it in, "Or not." The dust was all that was left.
"That was just too easy," Xander said as he put his stake away.
"Yeah," Buffy replied wryly, "Ya didn't even break a sweat."
"I guess the whole, standing on the sidelines helped," He smiled.
A figure in the shadows made the slayer and her friends look up. "Maybe we spoke too soon?" Xander asked as the blond went back into defense mode.
"So. You are the slayer," The figure approached them, "I figure as much."
"Ben?!" Buffy dropped a bit from her fighting stance. "What are you doing here?"
To Be Continued...