75 days to Apocalypse
“Welcome to the Tarot,” The woman in black addressed the new recruits. Her brown hair was pulled back in a tight bun; she was dressed in black from head to toe, standing in a stiff military posture. The recruits watched her nervously, hanging on to her every word that they would come to depend on if they wanted to live in this strange new world. If their attention strayed even once, she would know.
“You can call me Justice. If you last the week, you may learn my real name. The Tarot doesn’t have time to sugarcoat the truth for you. This is a hard school, and I’m telling you right now, you screw up here; someone dies. You can’t handle it, then that’s just too bad because there is only here or back out there.” Several expressions of fear crossed the listeners’ faces. They would do anything to keep from being sent outside again.
“As I’m sure all of you have noticed, Sunnydale has gotten really bad, really fast, which is basically why you are here. The Hannibals have taken control of the day, and the Vaders are holding the night. They terrorize and enforce their brand of rule on the populations, effectively rendering everyone in town helpless. It’s getting worse, and we are the only thing in the way of an all-out war between the two sides. For many citizens, we are the one thing standing between them and annihilation at the hands of either side.”
She flipped open a clipboard, “It’s not going to be easy. This first week of initiation for you will be Hell. We set a hard schedule, and we keep it. You will participate in the Tarot patrols that occur 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Your day will include eight hours of training, some of it specialized, six hours of patrol, one hour of preparation, one hour of debrief, seven hours of sleep, and one hour of free time. It’s tough, but if we don’t do it, there will be corpses.” She left that last part open-ended so they could fill in the blanks of who the corpses would be.
“I want you to take a good look at those around you. Human, demon, or otherwise, it doesn’t matter.” There was a brief resentful rumble from the group as they realized there were several different species represented. Justice responded by giving everyone a mental slap over the head, quieting any dissent. “All of you are equals in the Tarot, connected equally by the same web, and sharing the same powers. You will be assigned teams. Every team will have at least one Obi-Wan and one Scully on it, so get used to the idea. Those are the rules; accept them. As far as you are concerned, I am God, and this is the complete truth until I tell you otherwise. Xenophobics who can’t handle this get shown the door.”
No one met her gaze on that final challenging statement. No one wanted to be sent back into the dark. They would work with whomever, whatever, they had to in order to avoid that.
“Your mandatory training classes are first. Get there,” Anya ordered them. The recruits stampeded out of the main room like the hounds of Hell were on their heels. She turned to the one man who had stayed in the room. “Was I good?”
“Perfect as usual,” Xander reassured her.
Giving him a peck on the cheek, Anya sighed, “Well, it’s a cat-eat-cat world.”
“Dog-eat-dog.”
“Whatever.”
Elsewhere
There was no fidgeting as the instructor strode past their ranks. They were in two lines, standing as straight as they could. The thought of getting on her bad side was terrifying. She might have been under five foot three and 110 pounds, but no one ever argued with a vampire Slayer.
“I’m here to teach you guys some really simple lessons: how to kill Vaders.” Lover II checked over the lines. “This isn’t going to be easy or fun for most of you, but we’ve got to do it.”
Gunn backed her up, “A lot of them are going to be bigger and stronger than most of you.” He shook his head, “I’m telling you now, size don’t mean nothin.’” He grabbed Buffy’s arm from behind. She clamped her other hand on his wrist and used her hip to flip him head over feet onto the floor in front of her.
“I can’t make you any bigger, but I will make you killers,” Buffy told them calmly as she helped Gunn to his feet. “Because, as one of our best members said, it’s kill or be killed. Take your bloody pick.”
Another Elsewhere
“Some of you may have known me by other names, but as of now, my only name is Hanged Man,” Angel addressed the recruits in their next class. Some couldn’t look at him while others who had known him previously had no difficulty glaring at him balefully. “I’m going to teach you how to do something that I expect some of you have serious qualms about: killing humans.”
He approached a blonde girl in the front row and spoke directly to her, “Believe me when I tell you I am an expert at this.” He handed her a knife, vamping out. “Come at me.”
She trembled; the blade shook in her hand.
“I’m giving you a chance. Go for my throat!” Angel yelled at her.
Her courage gathered, the girl swung the knife toward him. He caught her hand mid-strike, knocking the knife away. Ignoring the blade, he pulled toward him by the neck and viciously twisted to the left. There was a dull crack, and Angel let her body fall to the floor.
Nonchalantly, he picked up his knife. “And you may be wondering why I didn’t cut her throat, since I could have taken her knife.” His audience gaped at him. “Slitting throats is not quiet. The lacerated trachea makes this loud hissing noise, giving away your position. Not to mention the extremely mess gout of blood that sprays everywhere. Snapping the neck or stopping the blood flow to the brain by pressing on the arteries on either side of the neck are both much cleaner and quieter ways of killing someone. Everyone understand?”
No one twitched.
“Good.” Angel reached down and hauled the body back to its feet, putting a brace from a nearby table around the body’s neck.
Frowning at her new fashion ensemble, Harmony patiently waited for her bones to shift back into place. “Hi!” She greeted everyone. “I’m the Queen of Swords.”
“I’m Judgment,” Cordelia explained from a lotus position to her class, all sitting in similar positions. “As all of you have noticed, as part of joining the katra web of the Tarot, you have gotten some degree of mental powers. You will be trained to do several things with these new powers. You will be able to identify, predict, affect, deceive, and freeze our enemies without breaking a nail or mussing your hair.”
“For starters, we will work on identifying. We have a few categories of creatures you will meet. Beings of unknown alliances are referred to as Scullies in humans and Jedi in non-humans. They constitute unknown threats. Allies, on the same line, are referred to as Mulders and Obi-Wans, no threat. Vaders and Hannibals are the enemy; those whose katras are infected with the Blight. Big threat. They can be anyone, your child, your mother, your wife. They can and will try to kill you. We need to be able to stop them, protect the civilians, and, yes, sometimes kill the Blighted. Is everyone clear on that?”
The recruits nodded.
“All right. Now we are going to learn how to scan katras.”
The room was well lit, spacious, and centered around two men handing out what had to be an arsenal of weapons. “Here we are, all of our favorite slaying supplies. We’ve got stakes, crossbows, daggers, garlic, flamethrowers, napalm, and my personal favorite,” The young man hefted a double-barreled shotgun. “The Equalizer. It’s got garlic and gasoline laced silver bullets, perfect for blasting any Hannibal or Vader to pieces.” He lazily twirled it once like a baton. “I’m Hermit, and that’s Strength.”
“Hey,” Strength greeted everyone from where he had been separating the weapons into holsters.
“Now, as your weapons instructors, we need all of you to take one set of Vader killers and one set of Hannibal killers. Put the Vaders on your right side and the Hannibals on your left. Then you need to line up in front of one of those dummies.” Pike pointed to one of the walls where someone had stuffed clothes and painted garish faces on pillowcases. “We are gonna teach you some really cool stuff.”
“All of you have been identified to have some talent of magic,” The Magician later addressed a much smaller class. “That is why you are here. No patrol goes out without at least one trained mage on it.”
“Whatever you may have heard about magic before this, forget it,” The High Priestess suddenly appeared in the center of the room. “Power circles, astral projections, shape-shifting . . . forget it. As far as we are concerned, none of it exists. You want to survive here, you will have to learn battle magic. You are going to learn exactly four spells: fire, water, telekinesis, and teleport.”
She disappeared and reappeared on the other side of the room. “Of these spells, you will be experts. You will be able to do them under any circumstances, under any amount of distraction, under any torture.” Willow pointed a finger at Ethan and he was lifted off the floor.
He responded by teleporting right next to her. “We’ll teach you to protect yourselves and your team. We’ll even get you to the point where you can save the lives of the civilians.”
“But,” Willow cut back in, capturing the group's attention, “You will learn all four spells.”
“Welcome to Willy’s,” Temperance welcomed the one recruit they had sent him. “Do you have any bartending experience?”
The recruit seemed uncomfortable with his surroundings, “A little.”
“Welcome to the Magic Shoppe,” one of the Jheira’s extra dimensional demons winked at him.
The recruit managed to stammer, “H-hel-lo.”
The room was basically the current cafeteria with one side dedicated to a counter that Willy’s and the Magic Shoppe shared equally. It had become too dangerous for Willy to continue operating, and the Magic Shoppe owner had been opted to sell all of his stock to David Nabbit and flee the town. Something about high mortality rates during times of trouble in Sunnydale. Now Willy served drinks in his spare time, and the demons doled out magic supplies so they got ‘human’ experience.
“I hate sharing,” Willy rolled his eyes and dragged the recruit toward his side of the bar. It was about time they’d given him an assistant.
“You have been chosen because all of you are able to read sufficiently well in a foreign language,” Wesley led another group into the library. The coven of witches, Harry, Sam Zabuto, and Giles briefly looked up from their books.
“We are researching all possible prophecies pertaining to what Sunnydale is currently experiencing. While it is true that some of us in the Tarot do have the gift a precognition, as I’ve always said, forewarned is forearmed.
A very quiet British voice mumbled under his breath, “What happened to ‘preparation, preparation, preparation?’”
The room was wall to wall with monitors and other pieces of computer hardware, most of it state-of-the-art. David Nabbit stood proudly in front of one of his personal investments in the Tarot. “I hope all of you have some ability with computers.” He punched up a few displays bearing US government logos. “We at the computer center monitor the computer activities of the Hannibals.”
“You hacked into government databases?” Someone from the back voiced their disbelief.
“It was easy. Been doing it since I was a teenager,” David dismissed the comment and went onto business, “This is also where we create Sunnydale ID cards for everyone and insert them into the system. We also train you to be operators so we can successfully equip the patrols and monitor their actions.” He gave them a broad grin that showed exactly how much he loved computers, “Ready to get to work?”
Four imposing figures in suits examined the three recruits they had received. Piles and piles of papers and videos surrounded them.
“I’m World. This is Ace, Five, and Six of Pentacles. We run the data-sifting department,” Lindsey McDonald told the petrified group. “We are the Tarot’s version of the KGB. We attempt to know everything about everyone in Sunnydale. Any questions?”
Not giving them a chance to answer, Lilah Morgan handed them some files, “Good.” The two other former Wolfram and Hart employees went back to work, silently snickering at how things hadn’t changed much.
“Congratulations, you survived the first day.” Xander then announced, “That was the easy part. The hard part is patrolling. Here’s the situation.”
He put a pointer on the outline of a Sunnydale map that was neatly divided into six sections with other various areas in lighter colors. “The Hannibals have got the city locked down in all of these major exits. Guarded day and night, no one can enter or leave Sunnydale without showing their ID and having a thorough search of the cargo. The Vaders seem to conjugate around the sewers and alleys.” He pointed to a few spots on the map, “While we do not know exactly where either groups base of operations is located, we have detected some patterns. Patrols are particularly tough here, here, and here where the territories overlap.”
Having found time away from their data sifting jobs, Pentacles Five and Six handed Xander a folder. Xander flipped it open and read, “Tonight we’ll have five roving patrols since it has been, according to World, rather quiet except one possible disturbance in Sector 5. Teams will be Tower, High Priestess, Hermit, Justice, and Hierophant. Leaders need to pick up their assignments now and meet with your new team members an hour before the patrol starts. After that, I expect all of you to get equipped after that. Listen to these next people for your instructions on that.”
“I’m the Ten of Clubs,” David Nabbit held up a hands-free commlink. “These are your communicators. I call them the Tarot-Com.” Only a few of the techies in the back coughed at that weak attempt at a joke. “Everyone gets one. Wear it at all times during the mission. It lets the operators hear you and track your location. Think about Aliens, and you’ll understand.”
Cordelia and Harmony took center stage. “We’re outfitting. Unless we tell you otherwise, there is only one color for this season in Sunnydale,” Cordelia explained.
“Black,” Harmony filled in.
“Almost everyone on night patrol has to wear it. I don’t care how well you can shield. The web is no protection from electronics or cameras. So you are wearing black: shirts, shoes, pants, hats, gloves, everything. Face paint is an optional fashion accessory, though strongly recommended if you are in the woods or the commercial section.” Cordelia finished and yielded to Willow.
“Tonight, every team has one trained mage. I’ve layered all of the protections spells against magic on you that I can. Since it is possible for certain patrols to occasionally last past sunrise, all vampires have a permanent anti-fire spell cast on them as soon as they join the web. It gives you 15 seconds of non-burning time. I’m not saying it’s not gonna hurt, but you have 15 seconds to get out of the sun.” She pointed her finger at a few of the vampires that looked a little too eager, “No one had better try playing chicken for a suntan.”
Moving to her sterner teaching voice, she turned to her newly trained witches, not all of whom were scheduled for night patrol, “Remember, your job is to save your team, yourself, and then the civilians. In that order.”
“Last, which is me,” Pike stood up. “Come see Strength and I for equipment. Based on where you are patrolling tonight, you’ll get different weapons.”
“That’s it for now,” Xander told the group. “This is the start of your hour of free time, so I suggest you use it. Any questions should be directed to your team leaders. You can pick up your assignments from Five and Six over there.”
In the corner of her eye, Willow saw Buffy pick up her bag and head toward the stairs. Being closest to Five and Six, Willow took her assignment without glancing at it and followed Buffy.
“Where are you going?” she caught Buffy right before the stairs.
“I already know my assignment. I’ve got Section 4, commercial district. Black makeup for me.” She gave Willow a mischievous eyebrow wiggle. “You’ve got the woods. Whose gonna do your cameo?”
“I don’t know,” Willow admitted, checking her paper. “No fair. Your boyfriend practically makes the schedule.”
Buffy abruptly ducked out of sight into the stairwell. Angel’s voice called, “Willow!”
Stopping in her tracks, Willow hesitantly ventured, “What?”
“Did you have patrol in Sector 5 last night, East Sunnydale?” He waved around his assignment.
“Yeah,” Willow replied cautiously as Buffy stayed hidden.
“I have Sector 5 today, so could you go over yesterday’s patrol with me before I go out?”
“Sure,” Willow answered.
Angel turned and walked back in the other direction, probably toward his room. Buffy popped up to comment, “Or you could stick with those one syllable sentences.”
“I can’t help it,” Willow told her. “He talks to me, and I go all googly eyed. I’m lucky I remember my name.”
“I know the feeling,” Buffy said without thinking and hastily corrected, “With Spike.” Willow shook her head, and Buffy conceded, “And with Angel, but not anymore.”
“Don’t worry.” Willow shrugged, “As long as it doesn’t hurt you-” she continued quickly, “-which you’ve told me several times it doesn’t, I try not to worry.”
“So?” Buffy gave her a gentle punch.
“So?” Willow mimicked.
“Are you going to make me beg?” Buffy went on, “How are . . . things?”
“Things? Like me and Angel things? Fine. Just fine.”
“Only fine?” Buffy was disappointed.
“Well, they would be better, if we did something besides talk. And talk. And when we’re done, talk some more after that.”
“But I thought. You, him . . . towel,” Buffy threw up her hands.
“That was last month. This is this month and, apparently, different.” Willow complained, “I want smoochies.”
“Then make the first move,” Buffy suggested, walking down the stairs. “If he is being all talk and no action, you do it. In fact . . .” Buffy handed Willow something from her bag. “Here, take your own advice and keep these. You may need them.”
“I said, smoochies, not the whole enchilada,” Willow pocketed the birth control pills reluctantly. “And don’t you need these?”
Buffy preened for a second. “Nah, I got a prescription that lasts longer than days to the Apocalypse. Use them when things get past smoochies.” Buffy stopped at the open doorway. “And speaking of-”
They had entered one very special room in the mansion: the children’s room.
The past month in Sunnydale had been difficult for many reasons. It seemed that the Hannibals had started recruiting from the human population for agents and killing all adult demons they were able to identify. In retaliation, the Vaders had struck back by killing adult humans and taking willing half-bloods into their fold. However, neither side cared to take children. They wandered the streets by their empty houses, easy prey for anyone.
The Tarot had been getting quite a collection of homeless, family-less, friendless children. Here they had a different life: food, shelter, safety, and the web. Inside the mansion, demonic, human, vampiric children played side by side, not knowing there was any other way.
Perhaps play was too weak of a word. They were being trained, subtly, to support the rest of the Tarot. For example, they were currently standing in a power circle that the witches often drew on to fuel their spells.
The teachers, oddly enough, were Joyce and Spike. Joyce loved kids, and she had a knack with them. Spike stayed with her because the children lent his shields power. They didn’t use the power of the web in the quantities the adults did. He often referred to his time with them as the ‘recharging of the Big Bad batteries.’ Buffy didn’t disagree at all, since the web had climbed to well over 300 members.
Not everyone lived in the mansion or went on nightly patrols. Lots of the Obi-Wans were in the basements of churches where they couldn’t be found. Some of the Mulders still lived in their own homes, and the gypsies were camped out in the mansion backyard. Many members were actively involved in information gathering, hiding members, monitoring patrols, and other support activities. Codenames were now assigned randomly, as opposed to ‘divinely,’ with extra identification added by color, like Blue Three of Cups was one of the children. Categories were identified by suit now, children being in Cups and priests/ministers were Hearts.
As soon as he felt Buffy enter the room, Spike was on his feet. Nimbly hopping the children, he swung her up in his arms, kissing her for all he was worth. The world dissolved into a pink haze for them; nothing ever felt as good as the touch that brought them closer together, practically inside each other’s skin.
Buffy broke it off when someone tugged on her foot. It was Jeta, the little gypsy werewolf. “Do you like him as much as he likes you? He’s always talking about you.”
“Probably more,” Buffy put her legs down, facing Jeta.
Spike spooned up against her back, his hands on her stomach. Nuzzling her neck softly and sliding his hands higher, he purred, “I object.”
She stopped his hands and quietly reminded him, “Kids. PG rating.” She resumed her normal tone, “He must like me a lot because he’s going to help me put on my makeup.”
Spike made a horrified face, “I don’t like you that much!”
The landing of the mansion was a flurry of activity as the twenty-five people slated for patrol finished off the final preparations. Everyone was dressed for their respective areas, and those who weren’t going out were putting on and testing the commlinks of those who were.
“Hey!” Buffy giggled as Spike covered her forehead with black paint. “That tickles.”
“It would tickle less if you held still,” he continued to paint, carefully avoiding her neatly tied back hair.
Buffy tried to control herself, watching his face wrinkle in concentration. His brush slid across her cheekbones, causing her to grin. “Raise your chin,” Spike instructed. She obeyed, and he started to work on her chin.
Spike took his time as her lips started to tremble. Giving up the fight, Buffy seized his shoulders and planted a long kiss on him. The brush fell to the ground.
Pulling back, Buffy smiled at his black-smeared face. “Black is a good color on you.”
He wiped the black off his face with the back of his hand. “At the rate we’re going, I’ll never get finished.” He gave her another kiss.
Up on the stairs, Angel turned away from the couple. Why did they have to be so damned cute? Couldn’t they have looked awful or uncomfortable together covered in black paint? At least they could have had the decency to not do that sort of thing in front of him.
“You okay?” Cordelia asked from beside him. They had finished applying their streaks of black makeup in her room with her huge mirror. Cordelia had used the mirror; Angel . . . hadn’t.
“Fine,” Angel replied stiffly, deciding to ignore the emotions that came bubbling up in his chest by stomping down the stairs.
“Can you help me?” Willow approached them with two containers of paint. “I can tell you about Sector 5 while you work.”
“Actually, Cordy and I were going to meet with our team,” Angel started.
But Cordelia practically ran from them, tossing over her shoulder, “I need to go get my weapons from Oz.” She whispered something in Oz’s ear and pulled him out of the room.
Willow’s face transformed with hope, and Angel nodded, “Sure.” Sparing a glance at the still kissing couple, Angel raised her hand to his lips, “It would be my pleasure.”
Eventually, Buffy and Spike went back to the task of preparing her for patrol. He was threading her communicator into her hair when she tested it. “All members of Hermit Team please report to Lover II.”
“I don’t see why you aren’t the leader,” Spike frowned. “You have the most experience.” He put her black hat securely on her head, making certain all of her golden hair was tucked in.
“We’ve been over this before. Thanks to you,” she gave him another short kiss to get rid of his frown, "Whom I love, it seems that me not being able to pick out the enemy on my own is a small problem.”
One of her team members, Gene, walked up from the basement. He grimaced when he saw whom Buffy was with, though he too should have been expecting nothing else.
Suddenly stopping, Spike’s eyes were drawn to Gene. He tilted his head in confusion as he saw the air around the boy was blurry, distorted. Then he heard it, a hum centered around the boy. Spike was filled with a sense of worried urgency, for there was a coiled tension in the air, and the hum intensified to a dull roar.
Spike shook his head to clear it and asked, “Is he one of yours tonight?”
“Yeah,” Buffy saw the concern on his face and felt his distraction.
“Keep an eye on him,” Spike didn’t say anymore.
“Hullo, cousin,” Emily called, leaving her husband trailing behind. She gave her big blonde cousin a hug around the waist, and Buffy rolled her eyes to Bob. She wondered if Spike realized how much she and Emily resembled each other. They were both small and blonde with the same bone structure. Emily was going to remain small forever since she had been turned at 15 by a nameless vampire that shortly met its end at the hand of that year’s Slayer.
Pike came up with their single recruit, briefing him on the area they would be going to. He checked out the faces of the team and realized only Buffy had gone for a complete blackening of the face. “Nice makeup. Everyone ready?”
Bob disentangled his tiny wife from her cousin, and Spike gave Buffy another brief squeeze, “Be careful, luv. Come back in one piece, and remember what I said.”
“I will,” Buffy tried to ease his unnamed fear. She stepped away and joined the group.
“I’m the witch today,” Emily began to give instructions. “Hold hands.” The group linked arms, and Emily made a complex gesture with her free hand. Without a sound or a flash, Team Hermit faded from view.
Spike stood watching the spot where they had been long afterward.
Yah, mandatory training sequence!