Buffy: Blinding Light.
“You’re gonna get it now retard.” The sneering voice said, “I am so gonna enjoy this. If God had meant you to live, he’d have made you normal.” The man’s fist struck out at the girl, again and again. But no sound passed her lips. She sat mute, as the man stood over her, throwing punches as well as verbal assaults. “Not a screamer eh? Let’s see what we can do about that.”
“I really would advise against that.” The crisp English voice rang like a bell in the near darkness of the alley.
“Who the hell are you?” Dave’s ire turned to the new arrival.
“I, sir, am Wesley Whyndam Price, and I am deeply concerned about this young lady’s welfare. A topic that you seem all too willing to ignore. Or perhaps, since it concerns another creature who is not you or your mother, her welfare does not even enter into your frame of reference.”
“Whaddayou sayin’ ‘bout my momma?” David took a step towards Wesley. “My Momma is an angel, an if you gonna cuss her, you better be ready t’ pick ya teeth outta the gutter English.”
“Yes, quite. I have a friend who used to be quite like you, in some respects, he too lived in his parent’s basement. He, however, picked himself out of that rather noxious hole, fell in love, and now, for what I can see, is living happily with a woman who loves him. Albeit, she is not the woman who he fell in love with, in face she is a version of her from a parallel reality, but that’s besides the point David, you are stuck in a rut, and you don’t seem to care.” Wesley paused, he could see David’s face flushed red with anger, possibly more anger than he had felt in his entire life, anger overcoming the numbing sensation of the alcohol in his blood. “But, enough about you. You are completely unimportant to me tonight. I have come for this young lady.” Wesley turned to Rebecca; she had not budged from the spot David had cornered her in. She stared from David to Wesley and back again, for the first time in many months, fear flashed in her eyes.
“I is so gonna kill you.” David flew at Wesley, the baseball bat appeared in his hands faster than Wesley’s eyes could follow, and the bat followed a blurred downward arc, aiming to connect with Wesley’s skull.
Faster still than the bat, a flash of blue intercepted the bat. The aluminium core, and the wood encasing it, met with something even harder than itself, the bat shattered almost completely. Fragments of wood and metal rained across the alley. David, almost in shock looked at the object that had blocked his blow; it was an arm, an arm attached to a woman. A blue woman. Her other arm moved quickly to grab David and hoist him off the ground and close to her face. David looked into her dazzling eyes, they were azure, with pupils like pinheads, as the woman focussed on him, and David didn’t need to be as close as he was to know that she wasn’t happy.
“You attack, first this girl, a girl you do not know, and then you attack Wesley. Why? Are you stupid as well as ugly?” Illyria stared at him, gazing into his eyes, his heart, his soul. “Yes, I see that you are.” Almost as though she were shrugging, Illyria tossed David against the far wall of the alley. He slumped into an almost foetal position, cowering as Illyria approached him again. “You pick on those you see as being weaker than you. On those you feel unable to defend themselves against you? I am a woman.” Illyria’s form changed. She took the form of Winifred Birkle, “Should I fear you? Do you want to hurt me? I dare you to try, no, I want you to try, I will snap you like a twig, introduce you to so many exquisite agonies, and then, if I feel you have learned your lesson, I will grant you death. Come.” Illyria took two steps back from the now terrified figure. “I am vulnerable, unarmed. Attack me.” To his credit, David managed to get to his feet, feeling urine seeping down the inside of his jeans, he turned and ran. “You are a coward, and you always shall be. Cower in your hovel for the rest of what you call a life, know that there are none on this world who are weaker than you, you are the plankton of this world’s food chain.” Illyria shouted after him. As the sound of panicked running faded, and the fleeing figure vanished even from Illyria’s range of vision, she turned to Wesley. “You are unharmed?”
Wesley smiled as he stared into the eyes of the woman he loved, then he mentally shook himself, reminding himself that this wasn’t Fred, this was Illyria, a millennia’s old demon god who had taken Fred’s form by force. “Yes, I’m fine, thank you for your timely intervention Illyria.” Wesley turned from the war god, and focussed on Rebecca, “And you young lady, are you alright?” Wesley extended a hand, to help Rebecca from her crouched position; she ignored the hand, and rose on her own.
“I. I, I’m fine mister.” Rebecca’s eyes flashed from Wesley to Illyria and back again. “W... W. W, Who are.”
“She is defective Wesley.” Illyria said bluntly to her companion. “We should have allowed the coward to continue his assault.”
For the first time in months, fear flashed in Rebecca’s eyes. In equal measure, anger flared in Wesley’s, “She is NOT defective. She suffers from a condition that we call Downs Syndrome.” As quickly as the anger rose in Wesley, it vanished again as he turned again to Rebecca, “don’t worry, we’re here as friends Rebecca. My name is Wesley, but my friends most often call me Wes.”
Rebecca, her eyes never leaving Illyria responded, “Pleased to m m meet you Wesley. W. W. Why did you help me just now?”
“That man was ready to kill you Rebecca.”
“Better ’n him have tried. I heal fast.”
“Of course you do, that’s one of the benefits of being a slayer, isn’t it? You’re also a lot faster than you used to be, stronger too I’ll bet?”
“How’d you know? I aint tole nobody.” The fear returned in the eyes, welled with tears.
“We know, because we help people like you, we’re teachers of a sort, helping you deal with your new abilities, and all of the responsibilities that come with them.”
“With great power, comes great responsibility?”
“Exactly. That’s a very philosophical way to look at it. It sounds like one of Jung’s but I can’t be sure.” Wesley smiled.
“Spiderman says so.”
“Ah, yes.” Wesley looked slightly taken aback, “Of course he does, very wise man that Spiderman.”
“He’s the greatest.” A smile crossed Rebecca’s lips, the fear and the pain vanished from her eyes, for scant seconds, then it vanished, and her face returned to its usual sad and lonely appearance.
“Well, like Spiderman, you have been granted amazing abilities, beyond those of normal people, and I’m here to invite you to a place where you can learn to harness those powers.
“Are you an X Man?” Her eyes were focussed on Illyria.
“I am Illyria, war god of the seven hells.” Illyria’s matter of fact reply made Rebecca smile again, and a laugh escaped her lips. “Are you laughing at me?” Angered by the slight, Illyria moved towards Rebecca, preternatural sinews tensed, ready for battle. Wesley’s hand appeared, firmly affixed to Illyria’s shoulder. It was an accident, she meant no offence, did you Rebecca?” Rebecca’s head shook a resounding negative.
Illyria turned to Wesley. “If she is a slayer, why did she make no move to defend herself from the coward? She could have easily bested him in battle.”
“That’s a good question, Rebecca, why didn’t you defend yourself, you could have knocked him out, one punch would have been enough.”
“Can’t hit people. It’s bad, if I hurt ‘em, I’ll get in trouble, be put in the dark place again. Can’t even see the sun in the dark place. Can’t even see me in the dark place. The fear welled in her again. “Can’t hurt nobody.”
“Dark place?” Wesley asked, curiosity piqued.
“It’s a no place. There are things in the dark, bad things, but I can’t see ‘em. They laugh, say they’re gonna come and hurt me, hurt the world. Say the balance is gone. They’re not real. But they are real, and they’re really comin’ an I’m scared of em. The dark monsters. They’re really real.
“And they’re coming?”
Rebecca’s eyes cleared of all fear, all sadness, all the pain washed from her heart, and her soul. “They’re here already.”
Illyria screamed………..
To be continued in the coming chapters of “Original Sinner”………