Work Text:
If I get out of this, Buffy thought, fighting every inch as bodies bore her down, I’m never showing up for Health Class again.
Big if. Between the inhuman gleam in Mr. Whitmore’s eyes; the hopeless, lost look in Xander and Willow’s as they and half a dozen others grappled her to the floor; and the tentacled, blue-black things whose poisoned barbs had her vision swimming….
Tendrils bored into the flesh of her shoulder, and the world whited out.
:Try to stay calm.:
A light, buzzing whisper in her head, worried and watchful.
:I’m sorry it hurts. But they can’t know I’m not what they think I am.:
Oh god, this thing was crawling inside her-
:The augury said if I did not find She Who Slays, the Edgewalker’s Daughter, then this world would be lost to the tsochari. Even now that I’ve found you, our chances are small. Help me, or none of your friends will survive.:
She Who- You want the Slayer? Buffy snarled mentally. Wait ‘til these things let go, and-
:Be calm! And act afraid. Everyone in this room is a host. Do you wish to kill them all? Do you think you can, young one? Please, trust me. My name is Aurahl. But the tsochari know me as-:
:Ngess.: This voice rasped in her head like sharkskin, cruel and icy; a match to the inhuman sneer twisting Mr. Whitmore’s face. :Have you broken the human yet?:
:A moment, Xhekk Thosss,: Buffy’s invader said, cool and indifferent. :I am still infiltrating her nervous system.: A whisper again. :Trust me. Just long enough for Xhekk to give us our assignments. Once we’re separated from them - once we’re out of telepathic range, unwatched - I can explain everything.:
“Waste no time, Ngess,” the thing wearing her Health teacher like a mask sneered. “Our hosts claim these three-” he swept a negligent hand to indicate Xander, Willow, and herself “-are those who can most easily approach this librarian without raising suspicion. We must not have untouched humans loose near the mystical convergence.”
The Hellmouth? Buffy swallowed dryly. Not good. So not good.
“If you think the G-man’s going to-” Xander dropped to his knees with a bitten-off moan, spasms wracking him.
“Xander!” White-faced, Willow reached out - and stopped, just short of touching him, whimpering in pain.
:None of them can help you,: Aurahl warned, still whispering. :The tsochari control them - they can torture them, kill them, whenever they wish. But if Xhekk believes you docile, and we go to meet your Giles….:
Her, this thing in her head, and a magic-using Watcher who’d already cast out one would-be demon ruler of the Internet. Yeah. That could work.
:Don’t believe in a fair fight at all, do you?: It was almost a chuckle. :I like that.: Aurahl’s mind-voice shifted, louder and cold. :I have her.:
“Like it’s going to do you any good,” Cordelia snorted; pale and shaking, but still defiant in the back of the crowd. “Those two losers,” she jerked her head at Xander and Willow, “would never skip class. So your master plan to lock down the library before Principal Snyder figures out you’re body-snatchers and calls the cops? Busted.”
:I think I like her, too,: Aurahl whispered, with the warmth of a grin. :It takes great courage to try to deceive one infesting you.:
Yeah? Buffy shot back, getting to her feet. Will it work?
:The way she intends? No. But-:
Cordelia shivered in place, eyes glazed with pain. Buffy’s fists clenched, hating her helplessness.
:It will give us an opening. If-:
“Your host is commonly known to roam this building at will,” Xhekk observed.
:She is,: Aurahl replied. :And the humans of this plane are weak. I can enspell this librarian into sleep, easily.:
“Then go.”
“Going,” Buffy said bluntly. “But if you want this place so bad, maybe you should wonder why nobody else beat you to it.”
Xhekk smirked. “Ignorant little creature. No one else was tsochari.”
:I hate to say it, but he has a point,: Aurahl murmured as they slipped out of the classroom. :A tsochar is very, very hard to kill.:
I’ll find a way. Just watch me. It hurt, walking down the hall as if nothing were wrong, leaving Xander and Willow, and god, even Cordelia, with the monsters.
:We can’t help them. Yet. We can help your friend Giles. If we move fast enough.:
Swallowing hard, Buffy broke into a silent run. Turn, turn, one more door-
:Not as far away as I’d hoped,: Aurahl said grimly, as they burst in and Giles jerked up from a dusty tome, startled. :It’ll have to do. I just hope none of the tsochari have a skill at mind-sensing I don’t know about.:
“Buffy, what-?”
:Touch him.:
Buffy gripped tweed, and the world vanished.
-A cold, howling wasteland of a world, so far in space that its sun was only a brighter star in a pitiless night sky. Alien structures dotted the landscape, where tsochari writhed and bred and plotted to spread their evil to a myriad warmer worlds-
-A quiet life of contemplation and magic, caring for a forgotten mist forest. Quiet rudely interrupted by a lone human survivor, too injured and exhausted to flee from a silthilar’s inhuman appearance. She healed his wounds, listening to tales of the wearers-of-flesh, the tsochari-
-Decades of patient stalking and brutal battles; faces of mortals she’d been able to save, and others she’d had to slay herself to halt more brutal evil. Finally driving the monsters from her own land, for now; only to discover more deadly plans in the making. Concocting a desperate stratagem to hide herself by magic among the monsters, and join the very invasion she prayed to stop-
“The wearers of flesh. The followers of Mak Thuuum Ngatha,” Giles said grimly. “Oh, damn.”
What, not even a dear lord? Bad. Very bad. Buffy blinked, the library shimmering back into focus. “You know what these things are?”
“I know enough to know there are things no human mind can comprehend without risking madness.” The Watcher was pale. “All of your Health class is infested?”
:The children are,: Aurahl stated. :Whitmore is dead. Xhekk merely wears his living shell. But you can’t get close enough to kill him-:
“Not without risking the others; yes, I see.” He regarded the Slayer, obviously torn. “Buffy-”
“Run,” she got out, not caring if her voice shook. “Get out of the school. Don’t be here. If you’re just not here, we’re still undercover and - maybe we can do something. There’s gotta be something in your books - but the books are here-”
“Not those on the denizens of the Far Realm,” Giles stated, plucking volumes off shelves with indecent haste. “They’re far too dangerous to have that close to the Hellmouth… be brave. And stay alive. I suspect we will need Aurahl’s help to save our friends.” Tomes stored in a pack, he seized a sword from the library cage, and disappeared into the stacks.
:A hidden way out,: Aurahl observed, following his aura with her mind. :Do your friends know of it?:
“They know there’s a way in,” Buffy admitted. “Don’t think they know exactly how to open it, though.”
:Good. Tsochari can’t read information directly from your mind - but they can be very, very persuasive.:
“They haven’t met the Scoobies.”
And she was going to make them regret that. Soon.
First things first. “So... do we have to save Snyder?”