Home
Paige Mathews shook her head as she wandered around the empty warehouse district of Sunnydale, trailing behind her 'Aunt' Jacks and the older woman's squire. Trust Jacks to pick the Slayer's little sister to train up into a Knight and Mage. Although...
"Hey, Jacks? What's the difference between a Witch and a Mage anyway?" Paige asked as they "patrolled" one of the safer areas of the Hellmouth.
The centuries older woman tilted her head back to stare up at the stars as they continued to walk. "Mostly it is simply a difference in how the magic is shaped. You use potions and rhymed spells as well as force of will. A mage, such as Dawn, uses their natural ability in conjunction with several components and force of will to shape the energy. In Dawn's case the primary component for her spells will always be blood."
"That's... kind of icky," Willow said from where she was walking behind them with Jenny Calender and Tara McClay.
"But more practical in battle," Jacks told her calmly before Dawn could rip into the redhead. Not to say that the older woman didn't have her own way of getting a point across. "There's always an ample supply of it spilling all over the place."
"Okay, now that was icky," Faith called back from up ahead of the group where she was scouting with Mikki.
Tara couldn't help the giggle at Faith's use of the word 'icky'. Which had been the Dark Slayer's intention when she'd used it. The shy blonde giggling automatically seemed to relax everyone else.
Jacks smirked at the Boston Bombshell. "Magic combined with technology is as new as the technology itself, or as ancient, as the case maybe. Blood magic arose at the dawn of time when even my ancestors were grunting out single syllable sounds and banging rocks together. There is a reason that blood sacrifice is a part of several religions."
"Seriously?" Dawn blurted, forgetting to be annoyed with Willow for the moment.
"Granted, it's usually metaphorical or animal, but human and other sentient sacrifices weren't exactly uncommon," Jacks shrugged. "And not only among demons. There is power in blood, and in blood spilled."
"If you want that kind of power," Jenny Calendar said flatly. "If you can handle that kind of power," Jacks returned just as flatly. "If you're willing to accept the consequences that come from using it."
Dawn silently accepted that last comment as being aimed at her. Jacks was still pissed about her flexing a little magical muscle without supervision. Yelling would have been easier to deal with than the look of disappointment in those neon green eyes that had slowly hardened over and been followed up by the soul stifling feeling of her magic being bound for three days. "A-all magic has consequences," Tara said more steadily than she would have before she had met Xander.
Paige nodded. "The Three Fold Law. Anything you do for selfish reasons will come back to bite you in the ass."
"Why are we doing this again?" Dawn asked quietly.
"Xander thinks Miss Calendar and I need to learn to play... nicely with each other," Jacks answered. "Tara is here to play peace keeper between us. Paige is visiting to report on what she's learned and done in the time since we last spoke. Miki came because she felt like it. I have no idea why Willow is with us, and Faith was bored."
"So why am I here?" Dawn wondered.
Jacks shot her a look. "If I have to suffer through this farce of a patrol then so must you, Squire."
That brought Jenny up short. "Farce?"
"Seriously, we're so far inside Good Knight Security's perimeter that we're not likely to run into anything major," Faith scoffed.
Miki growled. Dawn moaned. Jacks glared at Faith. Even Tara managed to summon up a passably irritated look.
"You know better than to say things like that," the half-fey said with annoyance loud and clear in her voice.
"I didn't say it couldn't happen, just that it wasn't likely," Faith protested as the ground under their feet trembled.
"Close enough," Dawn griped as she fingered the vials of blood and other components held in the special belt Vin had given her.
"We should get out of here," Willow said nervously.
"Paige, Tara, be ready to heal up any injured," Jacks ordered as the ground bucked under their feet again.
Jenny and Willow stumbled but caught each other before they could fall to the ground. Dawn dropped to a three point crouch as Faith did a handspring to land in a similar position at the younger girl's side. Mikki ran easily over the moving street until she was next to Jacks.
"Willow, Miss Calendar, keep behind us," Jacks ordered even as she activated the foldcom along her jaw. "Standish to GoodKnight. There is a situation at my location. Requesting back up."
"Affirmative, Lieutenant Standish," came the reply in her ear. "Teams are being redirected to your position."
"Tell them to step it up, we've got a pair of infants with us," she sighed.
The voice on the other end chuckled. "All due speed, ma'am."
"Affirmative, Good Knight." Jacks pulled her matched 9mm Glocks as her 'team' backed away from the cracking blacktop. While not her first choice, the demon killer loads in her pistols were simpler to explain than pulling a seven foot long double bladed polearm from a dagger sheath on her calf.
At least until they got a look at what they were dealing with.
"Dawn, Mik, fall back with Willow and Calendar," ordered the Knight. "Faith, with me."
Mikki snarled but fell back. The young Blood Mage bit back her urge to disobey and dropped back to stand beside her younger friend. They were behind Jacks and Faith, but still in front of Jenny and Willow.
Tara and Paige traded looks then moved to flank the physically youngest members of the team.
And the newly hatched Wyrm rose from the sewers of Sunnydale ready to devour all in it's path.
Pistol fire cut the night as Jacks and Faith started trying to drive the demon back underground.
With water puddling around her, Jacks glared at Jenny and Willow as Tara tended to the burns along her cheek, arm, side and upper leg. Smoke still drifted up from her charred clothes and hair.
No one was in the slightest bit amused. Especially not the team from GoodKnight that found themselves on cleanup duty.
"Someone tell me what happened here, right now," Xander ordered once he made it on site.
"F.U.B.A.R. Completely F.U.B.A.R." Jacks said flatly. "I will not go on even the most routine patrol with either of those two again. Not until they learn to follow basic orders."
"What kind of orders?" Xander sighed. He'd known sending them out as a group was a bad idea, even if they did have to learn to work together.
Faith and Jacks were a scary pair, but still they would get the job done and worked well together, even as the thought of them teaming up made people who knew them shudder.
Jacks, Dawn and Mikki... Well, Jacks said she wanted them as part of her team once they were of age, and Dawn was her Squire.
Anything that put Jacks and Jenny Calendar in the same place... Bad idea. They'd have to work something out if only because Jacks was slated for Miss Calendar's computer class in the fall.
"Stay back," Mikki replied to Xander's question when she determined that none of the others would be able to say it without screaming.
Xander winced at the undertone of pissed off cat in the werejaguar's voice. It likely had something to do with her being soaking wet.
The girl dropped to a crouch and picked up a piece of broken and charred pavement to sketch out what had happened. "Jacks' orders. Those two," a pause for an irritated glance at Willow and Jenny, "here. Dawn. There. Me, here. Paige, Tara these places. Jacks, Faith on point. Wyrm came up. It small. Jacks and Faith shoot at it. Hurt it."
"Then what happened?"
"Red jumped the gun," Faith snarled. "With the wrong ammo."
"How was I supposed to know Jacks is afraid of fire?" Willow whimpered.
Xander closed his eyes and gave in to the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. Add Willow to the list of people Jacks wasn't going into the field with. Ever. Plus, information about one of his Lieutenants that he really should have had before this.
Paige finished up with Dawn's hand and turned to help Tara with Jacks. "She was born in Salem and she saw her mother burned at the stake. I'd be more surprised if she wasn't afraid of fire."
"It would help if you aimed better," Dawn said icily.
"Enough," Xander snapped. "Jacks. Report."
"Yes, Commander," she said calmly. "We were on standard low threat patrol per your orders, when Faith tempted the fates and the Wyrm hatchling burst up from the sewer system. I ordered Calendar and Rosenberg to the back as they have the least combat experience. Mikki and Dawn were ordered to defensive placements in front of Calendar and Rosenberg, with Paige and Tara flanking them to provide magical and medical support. Faith and I took point. As the Wyrm's hide had yet to reach the near impenetrable density of an adult's our small arms fire was forcing it back down, where after I would have followed it into the tunnels to dispatch it with Kaina'tal. Then Rosenberg came to the conclusion that we needed her assistance with a very large but poorly focused, not to mention badly aimed flaming missile spell."
"The Wyrm?" Xander asked tiredly.
Jacks shrugged. "Fire is ineffective against even the youngest Wyrms. When I was... down," she paused to frown at the way the words fit together.
Xander translated that to 'having a panic attack'.
"Dawn cast a spell of sundering with Paige and Tara's assistance while Mikki and Faith doused me in order to put out the flames." Jacks glared at Willow and Jenny.
"If she wasn't afraid of fire before, that would have done it," muttered one of the men GoodKnight had sent out.
"That explains the ruptured fire hydrant. And the chunks of... whatever covering the surrounding five blocks." He frowned at Willow and Jenny. "I didn't think you'd advanced that far."
"She hasn't," Jenny said, sounding as annoyed as Jacks obviously was in spite of the fey repressing it.
"I... didn't think it would work," Willow admitted. "I found it in one of Jon's D and D books."
Tara grabbed Jacks' hands as Paige and Dawn both clamped their hands over the pale woman's mouth, while Miki snickered.
"Y-you can't turn her int-to a turtle, Jacks," Tara insisted. Dawn nodded her agreement. "It'd only piss off Buffy, Jon and Jesse." She paused. "On the other hand those aren't actually reasons not to do it."
"Don't help, Dawn," Paige sighed. "Does anyone actually learn anything after you turn them into a turtle, Jacks?"
There was a strangely amused glow in Jacks' too green eyes as she nodded enthusiastically behind the two pairs of hands covering her mouth.
Paige rolled her eyes. "Do we want to know?"
Jacks shrugged and Dawn snickered at the smile she could feel curving against the palm of her hand.
"Sims," the young Blood Mage offered up. Paige grimaced and nodded. It figured it took something like Jacks' temper to teach that particular vampire hunter anything.
"We'll l-let you go if you promise not to turn W-willow into anything," Tara said after a moment.
Annoyance and amusement continued to war in the neon green eyes before Jacks nodded slowly. The other three traded looks before, on some silent signal, they dropped their holds on the older magic user.
"Let me see if I have this precisely right, Miss Rosenberg," Jacks said as she allowed Paige and Tara to pull her to her feet. "You, thinking it wouldn't actually work because you found it in a gaming book, cast a flaming missile. When you know magic is real and that you have some talent for it. Is that correct?"
"I... Well... Yes," Willow squeaked.
Jacks took a deep breath and shot a glance at Xander as if seeking permission. At his slow nod she returned her attention to the redhead and the gypsy. "Miss Rosenberg, if you ever do something so idiotic again I will turn you into a turtle and leave you that way. Miss Calendar... I wish I could say I was surprised that you neglected to warn your student that even supposedly fictional spells can work."
"How exactly was I supposed to know that a so called spell created for a game would work, much less that Willow would attempt it?" Jenny argued.
Jacks gaped at the younger woman. "The Will and the Word, woman! The most primal form of all magic, short of Art itself! That child has power to burn and you didn't warn her about the Will and the Word?"
"For a make believe spell from a role play book?" Jenny demanded.
"All spells are at some point were simply MADE UP, woman!" Jacks snarled. "How did you think they were created? Hours of careful research in a laboratory?"
Jenny took a deep breath. Losing her temper with the fey wasn't going to help anything, except make her look childish. "Trial and error. Generation building on generation..."
"Of which flame and fire spells are common due to their usefulness," Jacks seethed. "There is a reason that Magic is also frequently referred to as the Art. Imagination is it's very foundation."
Jacks whirled away and gathered up the rest of her 'team'.
Xander glanced skyward as if asking "why me?", then sighed. "Okay, Willow, no more D&D spells, treat them like real ones because they might be. And I think I'll get Merlin to schedule something else for Jacks to take that hour next fall. Maybe music...."
It looked like Gypsy Techno-Pagans and Half-fey Warrior Witches just did not mix well. Xander would have to remember that next time he got the bright idea that they might learn to play nicely together. And here he'd been worried about Jacks teaching Dawn.
"Oh, and Jacks? We're talking about your fire phobia. Soon."
The half-fey dropped her head into her hands and whimpered softly.
Home |
||
| |
||