Subject: [SpikesSalvation] Phoenix Tears (8/?) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 12:43:26 -0800 (PST) From: Jerusha Hancock Reply-To: SpikesSalvation@yahoogroups.com To: SpikesSalvation@yahoogroups.com Chapter 8: The Conduit The room was dark and somewhat cold when they walked through the portal. Ty looked around curiously and then jumped, startled, as the fire pit in the center of the room flamed up. The voices came from no particular direction. “Welcome, Chosen.” Ty stiffened. “You know me?” “We know you. We know your Champion.” The voices were sexless, seeming to blow around them. “Then you know what’s going on,” Ty demanded. “You know who wants to kill us.” “Yes.” “Who?” Ty asked, his voice carrying unusual authority for a boy of ten. “The Likt’na’e have asked for your lives. There are many who would seek what they offer.” Connor frowned slightly, even as Ty’s eyes narrowed. “That’s why the demons and vampires have been working together.” “Even so.” “Who are the Likt’na’e?” Connor asked, thinking he might already know the answer. There was a long pause, and then the voices swirled around them again. “Evil. Everywhere. Power.” “The Senior Partners,” Connor murmured. “We should have known it was them. Do we have a chance against them?” “The time is not yet.” “What can we do? Will the Powers help us?” Ty asked. “It is not time.” “When will it be time?” Ty shouted. “When?” “In time.” “Bloody hell,” Ty swore, causing Connor to look at him. “Show me. Show me what happens if we wait.” “It is not done.” Ty scowled, looking very much like his father in that moment. “So what? You show me the future all the time, right? I’m just the vessel for the Powers. Why should it matter if you show me what I want to see for a change?” There was another long pause, and then Ty was seeing the future. He had enough experience with the visions now to know what was happening even as they came. This time he stood, watching, as his father died trying to protect him. As Buffy was slain trying to save them both. As Fred, and her child, were caught in the crossfire. As Emmie and Angel laid down their lives for him. Until, at the end, only Wesley and Connor were left, and Ty recognized this Wesley from the vision he’d had weeks ago. This Wes was an old, broken man who instructed Ty on taking his revenge from a hospital bed. When the boy finally came back to himself, he knew he didn’t have a choice. If he didn’t go now, if he didn’t find a way to stop the Senior Partners from coming after them now, everyone he loved would die. And he would be alone. It would mean the fulfillment of his greatest fear. “I can’t wait,” Ty said out loud. “If I wait, there won’t be anyone left. Uncle Gunn’s already dying.” “It is not time.” “I don’t care!” Ty cried. “I’m not letting them all die!” Connor placed a comforting hand on the boy’s shoulder. “If we don’t wait, will we lose? Can we beat them today?” “Unknown.” “So if we wait, we’ll be sure to win?” Connor asked. “Nothing is certain. The future is not fixed.” “Then it doesn’t matter when,” Connor insisted. “The Chosen is yet young. He is not ready. His strength is untried.” Connor’s grip on Ty’s shoulder tightened. “Then I’ll be ready for him.” “Champion…” There was a new note in the voice, almost one of respect. Connor quickly followed up. “But I need something first, before I can fight these people. I need to know why. Why I am.” He had wondered if the Conduit would know what he meant, but he didn’t have to wonder for long. “We will give you what you ask,” the voices replied. “We will undo what has been done and restore what was taken.” “What was taken?” Ty asked, staring at Connor, but the man did not hear him. He was seeing visions of his own. Connor stood in an alley, watching, as a dark haired man leaned over a blonde woman. She was gasping with pain, and Connor could just make out her words. He watched as the man and woman clasped hands, and then she staked herself, the dust settling in the rain, revealing a squalling infant. When the man gathered the baby into his arms, Connor could see his face for the first time. It was Angel. He watched as the memories came more rapidly. At first, they were not all his. He was simply an outside observer, watching as his vampire father held him, sang to him, protected him. Connor watched as Angel, and then Wesley, were betrayed, and he was taken to Quortoth. He witnessed all of it as one removed from the action, until the boy that he had been was about five. After that, the memories were his own. Connor remembered the love and the brutality that Holtz had shown him. Remembered learning about demons at his father’s feet. Remembered learning to track and hunt and show no mercy. Remembered being called Destroyer for very good reasons. Remembered punching through to another dimension, Angel’s dimension, for a chance to kill the vampire, Angelus. All these memories came, although they did not displace the implanted memories. Connor could still remember his foster parents, his sisters. He remembered what it had been like to be part of a normal, happy home, and he could compare the two. There was no comparison. With Holtz, he had known love, but he had been taught to hate, to kill, without compunction or thought. He had learned that the world was black and white, with no room for shades of gray. There was good and evil, and nothing in between. The young man Connor now remembered being would never have understood what he knew now. People were good and bad, mixed together. Sometimes doing the right thing was not easy, and the enemy might come in the guise of a friend. Sometimes it is the one who loves you most that hurts you the most. Holtz had loved him, and in the end Holtz had destroyed him. Reliving all of this, he could begin to appreciate the gift that Angel had bestowed. Connor had a chance to see the almost-tangible love, and later, the very real pain, as Angel’s son hated and betrayed him. Tried to destroy him. Connor relived his life right up until the moment Angel made his bargain with the devil, literally, and then it all just—stopped. ~~~~~ Spike paced outside the entrance, frustration and worry growing by the second. “This is taking too long,” he growled. Buffy put a restraining hand on his arm. “Relax, Spike. It’s only been about ten minutes.” “Still too long,” he replied, refusing to be comforted. He looked over at Angel and Emmie, who stood talking quietly. Angel was the reason they had waited until just after nightfall to come here. Fred and Dawn had been sent to the hospital to watch over Gunn. All of them had felt badly that no one was sitting with him, and it made the most sense for the two non-superheroes to go, as Dawn pointed out reasonably. Neither Angel nor Emmie wanted to let the other out of their sight, and they had quite a bit of talking to do to make things right between them again. Spike wasn’t terribly concerned about either, though. There was a great deal of affection and understanding between them. Both had put a lot of work into their relationship, and neither wanted to give up. No, it was Wesley he was concerned about. Wesley, who stood a little apart from the rest of them, shoulders hunched against something no one else could see. Buffy followed his eyes, and rubbed his shoulder a little. “It’ll be fine,” she promised. “Like you said, we’ve done this before. We can do it again.” “Feel like I’m getting too old for this,” Spike confessed quietly. Not that he and Buffy were old, exactly, but she wasn’t twenty anymore, and he wasn’t a vampire. Mortality and age definitely made a difference. The Slayer leaned her head against his chest. “I know. Me too, some days.” “Will!” Spike looked over where Emmie was standing with Angel, the look on her face one of alarm. Angel and Wesley were both standing there with blank looks on their faces. Both appeared to be in a trance. Just then, Buffy’s cell phone rang. She answered it, but only because the caller i.d. showed that it was her sister calling. “What is it, Dawnie?” she asked. There was a long pause, and then she said in a low voice, “Angel and Wes are doing the same thing. Just watch out for her, and we’ll try and figure out what’s going on, okay?” She ended the call and looked over at Spike. “Fred’s got the same problem. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Spike could think of several ways to go with a question like that, but the seriousness of the situation prevented it. “Somethin’ to do with that spell Angel had done for Connor,” he said flatly. Emmie was ignoring them in favor of keeping an anxious eye on the slack-jawed vampire. “Exactly.” Buffy looked at the entrance to the Conduit, torn. “I think we need to wait, Spike,” she said, voicing the thoughts that were racing inside his own mind. “If we go in—” “Angel and Wes could be vulnerable. Bloody hell,” he muttered, not liking it. Whatever was happening, he had no idea what was going on inside, with his son. On the other hand, if he, Buffy, and Emmie weren’t effected, chances were that Ty wasn’t either, though Connor certainly would be. He thought of several other, more colorful phrases that he could use, and bit them off. Swearing wasn’t going to do them any good right now. He needed to think. Slowly, both Angel and Wesley blinked, coming back to themselves. “What happened?” Emmie demanded from her spot at the vampire’s side. Angel just shook his head, but Wesley answered for the both of them. “I remember now.” He looked over at his boss, his eyes accusing. “I remember everything.” Spike was through waiting. Ty had been in there for long enough, and something was happening. Actions were being taken, and Spike did not like being left out of things. “Angel. Let’s go.” The vampire looked at him, and nodded abruptly. “Fine.” He touched Emmie once on the cheek in a silent good-bye, and without another word, they went through the portal together. ~~~~~ As Connor gradually came out of his memory-induced daze, he realized that Ty was still talking to the Conduit, arguing over something. “Does it matter if I die?” he was asking. “As long as I take them with me?” Connor began to be a little alarmed at this line of questioning, and he really didn’t like the answer. “Their deaths preserve the balance.” “Then send me there. I want this over with.” Ty’s chin was set stubbornly, his blue eyes absolutely fierce. “It is not done.” “That doesn’t mean you can’t do it,” Ty said, his voice growing just a little louder. “You want these guys dead? Then you get me there, and you get me there now. Otherwise, I’m going to make sure they stay alive. I’ll join the dark side if I have to, but I’m not going let anybody else die.” The funny thing was, Ty meant it. Like his father, when it came to the people he loved, he could be slightly irrational. And at ten, he could not comprehend the idea of the necessary sacrifice. Ty simply didn’t want to lose anybody else, and he was certain of his own immortality. The lighting in the room dimmed briefly, and then something shimmered in the air. Connor backed up instinctively, but Ty stood his ground as energy swirled and a portal opened right in front of him. Connor realized with dismay that the boy meant to go through and that he was too far away to stop him. Sometime during his own vision, and Ty’s request, they had moved away from each other. “Ty, wait. Don’t.” Ty looked back at him. “I have to go,” he said simply, and jumped through. Connor’s eyes widened, and then he heard a gasp behind him. Spike and Angel had just stepped through the entrance, and they seemed impossibly far away. They would not be able to make it to the portal in time to get through. Connor might just manage it. And he was Ty’s Champion. He hadn’t understood completely before, but he thought he did now. He had a destiny, and he had power. Something every one of his three fathers had taught him was that with ability comes responsibility. He understood that now. “I’ve got to go,” he called over his shoulder. “Tell Wesley he was right. It was the Senior Partners. We’re going to the Likt’na’e.” Connor hoped it would be enough to tell them where to go. He hoped he would be enough to protect his charge. The portal was closing, there was no more time. He leapt. ---------------------------------