FIC: Harsh Legacy: This Is Who I Am, Part Two (Part 7)

[Ryan Kinkor]

CONTINUED FROM PART SIX

Part Seven: Face-Off

Buffy kicked the steel support pole a seventh time, managing to mar it
slightly but accomplishing nothing more. These poles were clearly crafted
from tempered steel -- she couldn't scratch the finish, much less topple the
gantry. And she almost broke a toe with that last kick.

Knollen was laughing on top of the gantry, sitting at his desk and
watching Buffy through the metal wirework of the gantry frame. "I do admire
your tenacity, Miss Summers," he said.

"Too bad I can't say I admire anything about you," replied Buffy,
glaring up at Knollen.

"You can't, huh? That's a shame. After all, in many ways I'm modeled
after your kind. My brother and I had the utmost respect for Slayers, which
is why I kept you alive as long as I did. But I'm Slayer 2.0, so to speak. I
may have been designed to kill Slayers, but the purpose behind that was to
replace the old guard with the evolved version."

Buffy was about to make a marvelous if futile pun when something Knollen
said struck a chord. *Evolved version,* he had said. He believed that his
virus would save the world, even if it required the deaths of billions to do
so. Evolve humanity into monster-killers, remove the need for Slayers or
magic. He believed it to the point that he was even sacrificing himself.

Quite an ego. And egos could be exploited.

*You needed to know these things, Slayer. In time, you will understand
why. And when your heart accepts all parts of yourself, you may find doors
in places where there were once walls. Remember this.*

The words of the First Slayer floated up from her memory. Now she
understood why she was told of her origins. She couldn't jump to Knollen,
climb to Knollen, even topple Knollen... and now, she didn't have to.

"Hate to say it, Knollen, but you're not evolving anybody," she said.
"There's a little secret that a birdie told me recently. You're not Slayer
2.0, you're Slayer 0.5."

Knollen wasn't amused by this line of thinking. He expected more from
his debate opponents. "Please, Miss Summers, you can argue better than
this."

"Guys like you had their chance already. Men were the first choice to be
the Slayer, and they screwed up royally. Couldn't handle the stress."

"There's no record of a male Slayer, Miss Summers."

"The shamen who created the Slayer hushed it up. I guess the Council is
always hiding its dirty secrets. But it happened. Men had their shot, and
instead of protectors they became thrill-killers. This virus of yours is
going to turn everyone that survives it into sadistic psychos. You're
destroying us, Knollen."

"I'm saving us, Miss Summers," Knollen shot back, his perpetual smile
gone. "While this story is ludicrous, the Archons to come are the future,
not the past. We are superior to you, Slayer."

Buffy forced herself to laugh, though she had no humor within her. "You
say that, but you can't prove it. Here I am, waiting for the Moo'talen to
vaporize me in another seven minutes, while you prance and prattle up there.
You don't want to fight me because you can't take me. Superior? I don't
think so."

A deep scowl adorned Knollen's face. He wasn't happy. "I can kill you
with my bare hands, Slayer, and you won't even know where to strike back."

"Prove it, Knollen. If you believe the Archon is the *evolved version*,
then prove it."

Knollen stared hard at Buffy for several long seconds. Then he grabbed
a handheld device off the computer table, his personal organizer. He
touched it, and then Buffy heard cranking noises as the walkway connecting
the inner doors and the gantry lowered itself down fifteen feet, to the
cement floor beneath the gantry.

"Get on," said Knollen in the most serious tone she'd ever heard from
him. Buffy obeyed, stepping onto the metal walkway. Knollen pushed his
display again and the walkway's pulley system yanked the walkway into the
air. Buff held on the railing as the makeshift elevator rose to the level of
the gantry and halted.

Yep, nothing like threatening a man's pride to get him to do something
stupid. Buffy stepped off the walkway and prepared herself for anything.
Knollen was ten feet away and she didn't know how fair he fought.

Knollen walked away from his desk, stretched his arms up and unkinked
his neck. The smile had returned to his face as he squared off with Buffy.
There wasn't much room to maneuver on the gantry, with the metal framework
only seven or eight feet wide at its widest point, so this battle required
more precision than strength.

"This was a good idea," said Knollen, adopting a defense posture but
keeping his sunglasses on his face. "I always wanted to find out how much of
a rush it was to kill a Slayer. My final meal, I suppose."

*******

Stealth was not Archer's friend today. His E-Frame was noisier than an
industrial-strength canning machine. Every move he made was telegraphed
ahead of time. Valmont would know where he was at all moments. That didn't
concern Archer, not with the firepower he had at his disposal. Let Valmont
get an earful of his machine in motion -- he'd be tearing those enhanced
ears off tout-de-suite.

He cleared the hallway and came to the first two labs, two doors that
led to the southeast room and the northeast room. Valmont had to have gone
one way or the other, but playing guessing games was the way soldiers got
themselves labeled KIA. Chasing Valmont like this would only allow the
bastard to circle around his position, since the labs intersected each
other. Archer had to cut off the escape routes without cutting off his own.

Archer stuck his head into the southeast lab, using his keen ears to
discern breathing or motion. This lab had workbenches strewn with tools,
electrical gear, drills and storage bins full of loose nails and nuts. The
wall lights were at half-power, their normal status when the labs weren't
in use. He didn't hear anything, but that could mean Valmont was playing
possum. Archer switched his Uzi to his left had, unclipped a small, smooth
metal sphere from off of his E-Frame's waist section and pushed a tiny red
button on its base. The sphere didn't look like much, but one just like it
had turned the elevator into burning scrap.

"You in here, Valmont?" Archer called into the lab. The only response
was a slight echo of his own voice. "Well, I wouldn't stay in here for too
long. It's going to get real unpleasant."

With that, he winded up his right arm and pitched the sphere into the
room as hard as he could. The sphere collided with a plastic storage bin on
the far side, but instead of bouncing to the ground a set of hidden grapples
sprang out of the sphere on contact, sticking it to the plastic surface.
Archer ducked back through the door and waited two seconds, watching through
the minuscule window in the steel door.

The explosion went off, an orange fireball erupting out and spreading
over the contents of the room. The workbench caught fire, electrical
wires sizzled, the plastic storage bins melted from the heat. Archer was
safe where he was -- the explosion was intense but contained. A napalm
explosive from Mikar International's Weapons Division known as a limpet
grenade. Archer also had anti-personnel versions on him. Those had steel
shrapnel inside and were color-coded with blue buttons instead of red.

When no flaming man ran screaming from the room, Archer opened the
second door and went inside. Like the previous lab, this one was geared
towards mechanical sciences rather than biological studies. The format was
largely the same. Again, Archer listened for suspicious noises, but he heard
nothing save the roaring fire in the other room. Normally the automatic fire
extinguishers would activate and spray water over everything, but Archer had
the fire suppression system disabled when he locked down the access
elevator. He figured he'd need the full use of his arsenal and the
suppression system would hinder him too much. He'd reactivate it when this
was over.

"You're a very irritatingly hard man to kill," cried out Archer, hoping
to generate a response from his prey, switching his Uzi back to his dominant
hand. "This'll teach me to hire outside help when I can do the job myself,
though at the time I didn't want anyone knowing I wanted you dead."

"Since when have you wanted me dead?" came a voice in return. Clearly
Valmont's, but the location was hard to pinpoint. The open, domed ceiling
allowed for enough echo to cause misdirection. However, Archer did conclude
that the voice wasn't coming from the lab he was in.

"I've always wanted you dead," replied Archer, moving to the next door
on the west side of the lab and peaking through the window. "If killing you
that night at the Bronze had been an option, I would have taken it."

"Your master would have drawn and quartered you if you had," spoke the
reverberating voice. "So what changed?"

"I got sneaky," said Archer, moving through the next door and into the
third lab. This was a chemistry lab, much like the late Alaundo's old lab
but without the special biohazard security measures in place around the door
locks. Alaundo's lab was made not just to contain a loose virus, but also to
burn up in total incineration if need be. Only Knollen or Alaundo had the
codes to do either on command, but there were detection grids in place that
would activate if an airborne virus was detected through the air filters.

"About a week ago, I decided to plot my own road to power," explained
Archer, scanning the room as he talked. "I had been okay with being second
fiddle to Knollen, but as time went on I realized how fragile my status with
Knollen really is. His plans are to remove demonkind from the face of the
planet, and though I and a few of my men would be granted protection, how
long would it take before Knollen decided to remove me?"

"And killing me would preserve your life?"

"Kinda, sorta. I only wanted to delay the inevitable, not stop it. The
Boss could unleash the Moo'talen in a month or a year -- it didn't matter to
me. Killing you was a delaying tactic. The Boss would mourn you and postpone
our plans, and in the meantime I'd be setting up shop elsewhere, preparing
the demons of the world for guys and gals like you. I didn't expect the Boss
to lose it altogether and get suicidal, but I'm flexible."

From out of a small thigh compartment in his E-Frame, Archer extracted
the hardcopy of the backup R&D file, the one that he had discovered where
Vespers had told Archer he'd stashed it. He held the compact disk up and
admired its shiny surface, the simplicity of the shape. It was a disk filled
with the technical readouts for the E-Frames and other toys in G-Man's
weapons program. Toys that could make any demon as powerful as a Slayer or
an Archon. Toys that some greedy entrepreneur might love to develop and sell
to the highest bidder. Making sure it was intact, he placed it back in his
compartment and sealed it tight.

"Let Knollen give himself to the Moo'talen," he said, "I can find other
allies elsewhere. The Archon virus will kill off most of humanity, and with
weapons like my E-Frame available to other vampires and demons, the new
Archons won't have it as easy as they think. The world will be in chaos, the
reins of power up for grabs. And that suits me just fine, 'cause I like a
challenge."

"What's this about Knollen?" came the voice.

This lab was clear. Only Alaundo's lab was left, and with the adjacent
lab in flames, there was nowhere for Valmont to go. Archer tightened his
grip on his Uzi and approached the southern door.

"Oh, you don't know about that, do you?" sneered Archer. "Well, I'd
explain it to you, but in another few seconds you're going to be dead, and I
don't need you to talk and give away your position any longer."

Archer crashed through the last door, busting it off its hinges with one
powerful kick from his E-Frame. His gun leading the way, he sprayed the room
with bullets, shattering beakers, punching holes in the cabinets and
spilling chemicals, chewing up the walls. He didn't release the trigger
until his gun ran dry, then dropped his empty clip and inserted a new one.
He waited for blood to leak from a cabinet or Valmont to rush from his
hiding spot to his painful end.

Nothing. Once the cacophony of his wild spray had died down, he was left
with a quiet and motionless lab. Confused, Archer scanned the room again
with his eyes. This was the only hiding place left -- other than braving the
inferno in the other lab, and surely Valmont wasn't that suicidal.

The finger tapping on his bald scalp informed Archer that, apparently,
he had missed something. Then it occurred to him -- the dividing walls were
ten feet high, but the ceiling was ten feet higher than that. Archer then
noticed the large hole in the plastic roof over Alaundo's lab; Valmont could
have leaped or climbed over the walls, and if had timed his jump to coincide
with Archer's violent entrance...

"I've always pegged you as a two-dimensional thinker, Archer, " said
Valmont, the voice coming from behind Archer. The vampire swiveled around as
fast as he could manage, but Valmont was in the air and launching himself at
the surprised vampire.

******

As Buffy was learning the hard way, Knollen's reluctance to fight wasn't
based on a lack of skill. And he hadn't even taken off his glasses yet.

Buffy came at him hard, throwing a barrage of punches; high, low, low,
low, high, roundhouse, upper-cut, backhand. Knollen blocked every punch with
deft maneuvering, then launched his own assault, alternating between quick
jabs, spin kicks and even a wristlock that Buffy managed to wriggle out of.
Unfortunately, it was the last spin kick that connected with Buffy's face,
knocking her down and almost off the gantry, Buffy stopping herself short of
the edge.

"If you fall, I won't let you back up," teased Knollen, backing up to
give Buffy a chance to stand.

"The same goes for you," replied Buffy. She jumped to her feet and
pressed the attack again, this time feigning a jab and then stepping left so
she could drive her right foot into Knollen's stomach.

Knollen anticipated it. He didn't block the jab, but rather grabbed the
oncoming kick and twisted her leg in the direction of her momentum. Buffy
flipped into the air to avoid a broken leg and landed hard on the gantry,
blowing the wind from her lungs. Once again, Knollen retreated to let Buffy
regain her stance, a nasty grin beaming from ear to ear.

This was going to take too long. She had maybe another minute before
those solar emitters on the ceiling starting pouring solar energy into the
Moo'talen. There were a dozen of those oversized flashlights dotting the
ceiling, all of them aimed at the top of the pillar and the black obelisk.
She had two options: disable the emitters or grab the Moo'talen.

Knollen was standing between her and the obelisk. He was doing so
purposefully, always keeping himself in the way. He was waiting for her to
attack again, spreading his arms as if daring her to come get beat up.

Buffy still had her long sword strapped to her back. She held her place
and drew the sword out of its scabbard, holding it in both hands.

Knollen looked disappointed by Buffy's actions. "Come now, Slayer,
surely you won't stoop to using a sword on an unarmed man."

"You're not unarmed, but it's not for you." Then Buffy reversed her grip
on the hilt and threw the sword up, into one of the
flashlight-mated-with-a-car-battery emitters, right through its glass lens.
The sword was swallowed up to the hilt, sparks flying from the ruined
emitter and glass tinkling down to the chamber floor.

"Cute, Slayer," said Knollen, his smile shrinking a little, "but I only
need six operational emitters to complete the cooking on time. The other
emitters are a redundancy. But in case you decide to start throwing other
objects..."

Knollen went to his computer desk and gripped it at one end. Then he
heaved it over the side of the gantry, toppling his row of monitors and
other equipment onto the hard floor. The crunch echoing back up reminded
Buffy of a car accident in progress, complete with flying glass and scraping
metal.

*So much for that idea,* she thought. "Then I guess I have to go for the
heart," she said out loud, rushing the pedestal and knowing she wouldn't get
there.

She was right. Knollen stepped in front and threw a haymaker at Buffy's
nose. But Buffy veered away at the last instant and jumped, spinning her
right leg around and into Knollen's face. Knollen moaned as he fought to
keep his balance, then he lost it when Buffy followed up with a jab to his
stomach and a right hook to his cheek. He fell to the side, onto his
stomach. Buffy tried to move past Knollen's prone form, but Knollen's legs
shot out and ensnared Buffy's feet. His right foot kicked out the back of
her left knee and sent her toppling over on her back. Buffy rolled backward
and back to her feet, quietly swearing under her breath at her failed
attempt.

"Nice adaptation," he commented as he got back to his feet, his smile
gone. Then he balanced on his left leg and sent a volley of rapid-fire kicks
at Buffy. Knollen must have undergone kickboxing training at some point in
his life because his sense of balance was utterly amazing.

Not amazing enough, though. Buffy narrowly blocked each kick as it came
at her, but at the seventh kick she grabbed his leg with both hands and
twisted. Knollen wound up flying through the air in the same manner as he
had thrown Buffy a short time ago. He hit the metal framework with a loud
bang and slipped over the edge of the gantry, his legs and torso dangling in
the air.

"Nice fall," she remarked, then ran over to shove him off. Knollen had
other plans, however. Using his hands, he swung like a monkey and flipped
himself up, over, and above the gantry's edge, performing a double flip in
the air. Buffy backed off to avoid getting knocked off herself, allowing
Knollen to make a perfect landing on the gantry.

Knollen was not amused. If Buffy could have seen his eyes, they'd be
burning with rage. While grimly satisfied to see Knollen so ticked off,
Buffy realized that she could have gone for the Moo'talen while Knollen had
been momentarily helpless -- in fact, Knollen was out of the way at this
very moment. He couldn't catch her. Buffy turned from Knollen and dashed for
the obelisk -- and then Knollen appeared directly in front of her, as if
having teleported.

"Don't touch my toys, Slayer," he said. Buffy put on the brakes, but she
couldn't stop herself from running into Knollen... and through him. Briefly
confused, she realized that Knollen didn't have his sunglasses on. He was
displacing himself, and she'd just been hoodwinked by a false image. So
where was Knollen?

The kick in the small of her back answered that question. Buffy was
airborne for a second, then skidding on the metal with her stomach, past the
pedestal, barely stopping at the far side of the gantry. Not bothering to
bemoan her lost chance at dismounting the obelisk, she rose and faced what
she thought was the real form of Knollen. He was standing between her and
the pedestal once more, his brown eyes shining and his grin nonexistent. He
had his shades in his left hand, and with a flick of his wrist the shades
sailed away into the far corners of the chamber.

"Your prowess is quite remarkable, Slayer," he commented. "I myself have
learned a few martial techniques but have had precious little reason or
opportunity to utilize them. Your advantage over me, it seems. It's past
time I changed that. You see, I never learned how to turn off my
displacement ability. It's very disconcerting to other company presidents
when I try to shake their hands and I pass right through them, so I have to
wear shades to shut it off. Advantage -- mine."

"Don't count your chickens before you displace them," replied Buffy.
Then she reached into her pants pocket and extracted the object Giles had
given her to ward off Knollen's power.

Putting it over her eyes, it instantly made the world darker. But
Knollen's form shifted several feet to the right as she donned her own pair
of sunglasses, convincing Buffy that Giles' theory was on target; blocking
displacement energy worked both ways. If Knollen's glasses prevented his
power from affecting others, then her own glasses should negate his false
image for Buffy. And Knollen's scowl was certainly worth the price of the
fashion faux pas she was undertaking. Sunglasses at night was so 80's, after
all.

"Someone's been doing her homework, it seems," said Knollen. He came at
her, fists and feet in a blur of motion. Buffy had no trouble blocking the
attacks with Knollen's image and real physical form matching up. So far, so
good...

Buffy yelped as the chamber became five times brighter without any
warning, six of the solar emitters on the ceiling firing up and delivering
high-intensity light onto the black obelisk. Buffy had accidentally moved in
front of one of the beams and the light was scorching her retinas, her
sunglasses proving barely-adequate protection until she moved away. Blinded,
white flashes dancing around her eyes, she couldn't block Knollen's next
punch, a direct hit to her glasses.

Actually, it was more a grab than a punch, Knollen's fingers encircling
the rim of her glasses and yanking them off her face. Her vision cleared
quickly, but not enough to let her react before Knollen crumpled her shades
between his fists and tossed the wreckage away.

*Not good,* she thought, her assessment about both Knollen and the
now-charging Moo'talen. The beams of concentrated light reminded Buffy of
sunlight streaking through a window pane, warm and bright and inviting. But
their destination was the opposite -- the obelisk's polished surface didn't
reflect the light but drank it in, absorbed it. Buffy thought she could see
the device start turning a lighter color of black, as if converting the
artificial sunlight into a new paint job.

"End game, Slayer," said Knollen, a surge of triumph filling him. "Five
more minutes. And I think I know how to keep myself occupied until then."

*******

Valmont latched onto Archer's gun with one hand while the other held the
vampire's left arm out wide. Strength-wise, Valmont couldn't compete with
Archer's E-Frame, but he wasn't trying to.

Archer tried to bring the Uzi to bear, but Valmont gripped the chamber
section of the gun with his hand and pulled with all his might. The chamber
slid and popped out a bullet, then the entire chamber and muzzle came off in
Valmont's hand, leaving Archer holding half a useless gun. Archer cursed and
threw away the weapon, but then his right hand came back and punched Valmont
straight in the face.

Valmont sailed away from Archer and into the nearby wall, smashing a
picture of a water-colored seascape into four or five fragments. Archer
followed up with a left hook, but Valmont was ducking under the punch and
letting it ram into the wall instead of his nose. Valmont's claws were out
and slashing at the joints of the suit's knee, managing to rip several wires
out of the right kneecap.

Archer shouted in outrage and tried to thump Valmont on the back with
both fists. Valmont rolled between Knollen's legs, came up, and kicked
Archer in his armored fanny. More emotionally satisfying than disabling,
Valmont backed away as Archer, growling, whirled around and faced his foe.

"You're going to wish you never awoke, Valmont," said Archer, his
claw-blades shooting out of their forearm sockets.

"My squad back in WWII had a saying: 'you can't die more than once in
one day'," replied Valmont, who then made a weird face and said, "Of course,
back then it had a different context."

The joke lost on Archer, the vampire roared and rushed Valmont, claws
leading the way. Valmont parried the claws up and wide with his own, then
slashed at Archer's torso with his right hand. His claws scraped along the
E-Frame's armor, but otherwise couldn't penetrate. Valmont had to remind
himself that his claws couldn't punch through metal plating.

For a minute, Valmont blocked and parried Archer's swipes and thrusts,
unable to counterattack with any hope of success. Archer's strength was too
great to match and his claws were longer than Valmont's. Archer knew this
and pressed his advantage, hoping to tire his opponent out and force him to
make mistakes.

Archer underestimated the quality of his blades. One double-swipe by
Archer clashed directly with Valmont's claws. Those weapons of bone and
mysticism, weakened by repeated swipes, were cleaved in two by Archer's
blades. Nine of Valmont's claws clattered to the ground, the left pinky claw
surviving. Only stubs remained on Valmont's hands.

"Friggen," Valmont cursed. "Do you know how long it takes to grow those
back?" But he was mourning their loss only for a second, as he back-flipped
and kicked Archer under the chin, forcing Archer backward and drawing a
little blood from the vampire's lip. Archer sucked in the blood and pain and
came forward, pile-driving his right gauntlet into Valmont's chest as
Valmont finished his flip.

Grunting, Valmont once again took to the air due to the force of
Archer's hit, this time missing the northern wall and passing through the
open doorway. He slid on the ground another seven feet and crashed into the
specimen table in the chemistry lab, knocking it over and showering Valmont
with medical test tubes and the wooden tray they had been parked on.
Thankfully the tubes were all plastic and didn't break on the way down.

"Watch those pop flies," said Archer as he stood in the southern
doorway, a metal sphere in his hand. He touched the blue button on the
base and tossed the limpet grenade right at Valmont. Yeah, the grenade would
end the festivities very quickly, but Archer wasn't having fun any more.

Valmont had watched Archer use a limpet on the first lab, spying on
Archer through the window in Dr. Alaundo's eastern laboratory door. Archer
couldn't fake him out. Valmont grabbed the wooden tray next to him and held
it like a shield, directly in the path of the limpet grenade. The limpet
collided with the tray, tiny spikes shooting out and sticking the limpet to
the tray. Valmont then heaved the limpet-clad tray back at Archer.

In the second that it took for the limpet to detonate, Valmont dived
behind the tipped-over specimen table while Archer fought off his surprise
and swiveled around in an attempt to flee out the door. The grenade went off
in the air, two feet away from Archer. Instead of a fire blossom, a cloud of
smoke and a rain of needle shrapnel emerged. One needle found Valmont's left
thigh and pierced it, Valmont yelling in pain. The rest of the shrapnel
impacted on the specimen table, sparing Valmont further agony. Archer was
hit in the back with two dozen needles, half of which pierced his plating or
found soft spots. Archer screamed bloody murder, his back resembling a pin
cushion.

Valmont gritted his teeth and pulled the needle out of his thigh, blood
welling up from the hole. No veins or arteries were hit, so he counted
himself fortunate in that regard. Archer was shrugging off his pain and
whirling back on Valmont, however, so Valmont wasn't exactly feeling real
fortunate.

Getting back to his feet, Valmont picked up the specimen table and
hurled it at Archer. The vampire easily caught the table with both hands and
threw it back at Valmont. His leg injured, Valmont didn't dodge it in time.
The table blew him back against a row of cabinets, stunning him slightly.

Archer tried to advance into the room, but he seemed to be having
trouble moving his right leg; either Valmont's claws or the shrapnel had
done something. During the breather of Archer's struggling, Valmont's nose
noticed that the smoke was getting worse. Past Archer, the fire was
spreading into Alaundo's old lab. That would cleanse any remaining Archon
viruses stored there, but if he didn't get out soon, the fire would cleanse
him too.

Archer compensated for his lame right leg by dragging it. Now Archer was
coming, his face twisted in anger and agony. Valmont got to his feet,
thinking out his options. Archer was in the way of both doors and Valmont
couldn't jump with a bad leg. Escape meant going through Archer, and Valmont
had already learned how painful an idea that was.

But it was through Archer that he had to go. So it was time to get mad.
Really mad.

*******

Buffy had had her share of hopeless battles, all of which had turned
hopeful in the end. One way or another, she had triumphed through them. The
cost had sometimes been almost unbearable, but that was the price you paid
when you were a Slayer.

And here she was, less than five minutes from disaster, facing a foe as
tough and able as she was who could cloud her mind. Hope, where the hell are
you?

Knollen's fist came at her. She blocked, but the image slipped through
her wrist. The blow hit her in the neck instead of the jaw, the angle all
wrong. Two more blows connected with her chest and forehead. Each time, the
image of Knollen danced in front of her, pummeling and yet not pummeling
her.

Buffy back away, flailing widely, but the blows kept coming. She closed
her eyes and tried to use only her hearing, but even her hearing deceived
her -- footsteps and laughter from the side masked the kicks coming from the
front. It was worse than fighting an invisible person, because her senses
kept telling her incorrect information. And she couldn't shut off her
senses.

The worst part was that her senses were growing superior again, but
those same enhanced senses that made fighting Uralics a breeze were only
exacerbating her problem. She tried wild, random movements but Knollen was
too patient, striking at her face and torso when one of her defenses went
down. She had visible bruises on her face now and fought back her urge to
scream in frustration, but every sense she had confused her as Knollen
teased and poked her.

"Cast down into the Halls of the Blind," mocked Knollen from his false
image. "This is a real pleasure. I suppose I should really be thinking about
concluding this, as it's almost time to make some destiny, but I've still
got a minute to kill. And speaking of kills..."

Her face battered, her sides sore, Buffy saw Knollen balance again on
his left foot. She knew what was coming, but she had no idea from where. She
was going to get hammered.

<And when your heart accepts all parts of yourself, you may find doors
in places where there were once walls.>

The words came into her mind again. Yeah, yeah, understanding.
Understanding was what got her up here and getting the snot kicked out of
her in the first place. What more...?

<You may find doors in places where there were once walls.>

Her senses were on fire again. Everything had slowed down. Knollen was
moving like molasses in the Arctic. Her sight more acute, her hearing more
detailed. But there was more this time, another level of seeing. Knollen's
false form was still present but it was faded, transparent. To her left, a
foot away, another image had formed, one real and outlined in a rainbow of
hues. Knollen sending his right leg out to inflict serious damage.

With her eye set on Knollen's false image, Buffy ducked and spun her leg
in a sweep, taking Knollen's left leg out from under him and dropping him on
his back. The gantry rattled from the fall.

Focus, clarity -- Buffy understood what Slayer focus really was. It
wasn't just the ability to perform handstands, not just fighting like a
wolverine on speed. It was seeing past the illusions, seeing doors where
there were walls, seeing possibilities were there was emptiness.

Seeing hope where there was despair.

Knollen, the real Knollen, was on his feet and fuming. "Lucky shot,
Slayer." He came at her again, his right fist leading his attack. Buffy
caught it and punched back, nailing Knollen right on the nose. Knollen
staggered back, clutching his nose and swearing unintelligibly.

"You're losing your cool, Knollen," she mocked at him. "Call this off
before I lose mine."

Knollen shook his head, his brown eyes full of fire. "I never throw the
game, Slayer."

"Then you better get ready, Knollen," she shot back, a bonfire aglow in
her own eyes, "because the game is about to get rough."

*******

CONTINUED IN PART EIGHT