My Life is Different Ch. 12

And then, the dragon opened its mighty jaws and another column of white-hot flame burst forth. I screamed, and feared the worst as the lord of the Wild Hunt was consumed in the sort of heat normally found in a crucible furnace. It didn't seem very likely that she could have survived a merciless inferno like that.

Then, much to my surprise, she marched determinedly from the dwindling flames, and angrily punched the dragon in the nose.

I let out a victory cheer when I realized she wasn't dead. Apparently, the lord of the Wild Hunt was imperious to fire too.

My joy was short-lived however, as the dragon had other means of attack besides fire. The dragon picked up Buffy in one of its massive claws and flapped its mighty wings, taking it up into the air. When it reached a height of about thirty feet, it came crashing back down, smashing the lord of the Wild Hunt mercilessly into the ground.

That had to hurt.

It wasn't fatal, but if the dragon continued to smash Buffy into the ground over and over again, it might eventually kill her, especially if the dragon decided to do it from a much greater height.

"There may be a way to kill the dragon."

At first I had no idea where those words came from. I looked around, and there was nobody near me.

"I have studied dragons a great deal," the voice continued, "I have some unique insights into how they might be put to death."

"Am I going crazy?" I asked, and watched as the dragon smashed the lord of the Wild Hunt into the ground once more.

"I am no expert on lunacy," the voice responded, "however, I believe that your mind is healthy enough. I do suggest you listen to me, and heed my advice on how to kill the dragon."

It slowly dawned upon me that the voice I was hearing was the voice of the person whose body I was sharing. She was centuries old and knew far more about dragons than I did. I decided to stop asking stupid questions and listen to her.

According to her, dragons didn't so much breathe fire, as they vomited up chemicals that are highly combustible.

Apparently, dragons have four stomachs. Each stomach contains different chemicals. If the dragon vomits up chemicals from all four stomachs, in the proper ratios, and times it just right, they'll react and ignite just as they leave the dragon's mouth. It's a very tricky balancing act, and dragons that don't master the proper mixing of chemicals at a very young age, never live long enough to become adult dragons.

I was sharing a body with a magic-practitioner who knew a spell that might cause a horrible imbalance in the dragon's stomachs. It was the sort of spell that would cause a human to become nauseated, have a horrible stomach-ache, acid reflux and vomiting.

In a dragon, it might do much worse things.

The Serparvo demons continued to attack the dragon while I readied my spell. That was good, as it kept the dragon distracted, and meant it couldn't focus its full attention on Buffy. I concentrated, and tried to mouth the proper words to make the spell work.

It was complicated, and I don't remember it all, but I'm certain the spell was in some sort of Elvish language. My mouth was forced to say things like, "Stamag diadhaidh! Stamag losgadh!" and, "Stamag sgaoileadh!"

That's not Latin. That's not any language I've ever run across before. I'm pretty sure that's a language from the faerie realm.

At first, I wasn't sure if my spell had done anything. But then the dragon stopped attempting to crush Buffy, it stopped attempting to crush the Serparvo demons, and jerked its head up, with a look of horror on its reptilian face, and even though I was thirty yards away, I could hear the ominous sounds of chemicals sloshing around the dragon's gastrointestinal system with mad abandon.

The dragon opened its mouth wide and began to pant loudly. Its tail twitched back and forth wildly, and its eyes widened in panic. The dragon looked worried, and if it had been human; instead of a massive reptile, I'm sure it would have been sweating profusely.

"Skeito," I cried out and raised my hand in a mystic gesture a split-second before the dragon exploded.

An invisible shield of mystical energies sprang up before me, and when the dragon exploded in an eruption of blood, bile, digestive acids and bits of ruptured muscle tissue, my shield protected me from being splattered.

The shield spell I had just cast wasn't one of my spells, it was a spell that had been mastered by the faerie practitioner that I had merged with. Our bond was getting stronger, and I could access her memories and skill-sets much more easily now.

Part of me thought that that was cool. Another part of me thought that if we remained merged much longer, it would be hard to tell where I ended and where the faerie began. We were getting far too comfortable being merged together, and if we didn't separate soon, we might be stuck together forever.

I enjoyed the additional mystic knowledge that came with the merging, but I was not a warrior of the faerie realms. I was Willow Rosenberg, I was a college freshman, I was a computer science major, and I was seriously in love with Buffy Summers!

If I stayed merged with the Sidhe spell-caster, I was going to lose all that.

The lord of the Wild Hunt picked herself up and began to wipe dragon viscera off her clothes. She was very nearly covered in the stuff. I walked over to her and said, "Buffy, the battle is over. You can take the Gauntlets off now."

"Over?" she inquired, "The Wild Hunt can never be over! There is still plenty of prey that can be hunted in this town! Just think of it! Vampires, demons and lurkers shall be our prey! We shall hunt prey all across the Hellmouth forever and ever!! Century after century, Lady Willow and the lord of the Wild Hunt! We slay anything that lurks or prowls the dark shadows of Sunnydale! The Wild Hunt need NEVER stop!"

A part of me thought that this sounded like a really cool idea. A part of me was really excited about the Wild Hunt never ending. The Wild Hunt was mighty and undefeated. We would be feared, and the sound of our thundering hooves approaching would cause all potential prey to panic and hide from us.

However, another part of me was horrified. I was an American teenager, who enjoyed snuggles with my girlfriend, shoe-shopping at the Sunnydale Mall, and defragging the hard-drive on my computer. I loved spending time with Xander, Buffy, Tara and other American teenagers. I wasn't going to give all of that up, just so I could engage in an endless adventure of killing things.

Even though I was wearing leather and chainmail, I still seemed to have pockets. I reached into one of them and pulled out a long, black feather. I gave it a brief look, and then I said, "Hypnos."

Hypnos was a powerful, godlike immortal that I had helped out once. He had been captured by a duo of evil wizards, and I had helped him to escape. He owed me a favor, and I decided this was the right time to call it in.

Hypnos appeared a second later. He didn't look at all the way you'd expect a powerful, godlike immortal to look. He was thousands of years old, and very nearly unkillable, yet he looked like an adorable, somewhat effeminate sixteen-year old boy.

"Willow Rosenberg," he said in that sweet, soothing, magical voice of his, "your physical appearance has changed since we last met."

"Yeah, I got taller," I responded.

"And you appear to be dressed for war," he added, noticing my chainmail shirt and the weapons belt strapped around my waist, "Is there an enemy you need my assistance in overcoming?"

It suddenly occurred to me that I could have called upon Hypnos earlier. If I had done that, I could have had him locate the Gauntlets of the Huntsman and remove them Sunnydale before anybody got hurt. That was a missed opportunity.

Suddenly, the lord of the Wild Hunt burst into good cheer and said, "Hypnos, god of dreams! Excellent! You can enter into the dreams of warriors and inspire them to come to Sunnydale and join in the Wild Hunt! With your help, the Wild Hunt can be greater than ever before!!"

Hypnos turned to me and asked, "Willow Rosenberg, is this what you wish of me?"

"Actually, I'm kind of sick of the Wild Hunt," I admitted, "I'd like you to take the Gauntlets of the Huntsman away from her, and take them far, far away from Sunnydale, so that none of us will ever see them again."

"What?" the lord of the Wild Hunt said, sounding grossly offended, "I am not some misbehaving child to have my belongings taken away from me! I am an ancient and powerful- "

And then, the lord of the Wild Hunt collapsed onto the ground, and fell fast asleep.

"She will sleep for a time, Hypnos explained, "When she awakens, she will remember very little of the Wild Hunt. Her mind is not truly adapted for the sorts of thoughts that run through the mind of an ancient and godlike being of the faerie. Remembering too much of the time she spent merged with a being like that could cause permanent damage to her mind."

"Thanks," I said, "I appreciate that."

Then, he removed the Gauntlets from her hands, and she was no longer eight feet tall, and wearing battle-armor. She was five feet, four and wearing blue jeans and a t-shirt.

A few seconds later, I realized I wasn't wearing battle armor anymore either. I had shrunk back to my regular size and was once again wearing my regular clothing.

"Where will you be taking the Gauntlets?" I asked.

"Far, far away," Hypnos responded, "I know of places far from Sunnydale, where things can be lost and never found again," and then he just faded away, and disappeared from our reality.

Agent Mulder made some sort of smartass remark about the land where things can be lost, but he said it so softly, I couldn't make it all out. I think it had something to do with missing socks.

With the battle over, the Serparvo demons looked confused. Mulder, Giles and Marianne stood over the sleeping form of Buffy, as if daring them to lay a finger on her. Under other circumstances they might have rushed my friends and tried to kill Buffy, but these circumstances weren't ordinary.

"What are those things?" Agent Mulder asked.

"Serparvo demons," Giles replied, "They're very resilient, almost impossible to kill. If you stab or shoot them, they recover from their wounds almost instantly. The only way to kill them, is to drown them."

Giles and Agent Mulder both glanced in the direction of the tiger habitat. There were no tigers in it, however there was a huge moat, just filled with thousands of gallons of water. If we were going to get into it with the Serparvo demons, that would be the best place to do it.

The Serparvo demons seemed to understand every word Giles and Mulder said, and they didn't seem comfortable with how knowledgeable Giles and Mulder were about their strengths and vulnerabilities. The entire group of demons wandered away, giving wary glances in our direction every few seconds as they exited the zoo.

"This is quite a town you've got here," Agent Mulder said after the demons were gone.

"You have no idea," Giles replied, with typical British stoicism.

"You know, I have some vacation time coming up in October," Mulder said, "I might just want to spend it here."

"Sunnydale isn't really the sort of place where people go to relax on their days off," I replied.

"Normal people tend to avoid this town whenever possible," Marianne added.

"I'm not exactly normal," Mulder confessed, "I track down paranormal oddities for fun. That's sort of my main deal in life."

"Oh well, you should enjoy your time here then," Marianne admitted, "What week in October were you planning on coming back?"

"The ninth through the thirteenth," Mulder replied.

"I might just take that week off from work too," Marianne said, "Your chances of surviving a week in Sunnydale would be better if you had a tour guide."

I blinked several times at Marianne's comment. Was she flirting with Agent Mulder? When Buffy and I flirted, we were a lot more adorable than this, but Marianne was way older than I was. Maybe people in her age group flirted differently than teenagers.

"If I had your phone number, I could give you a call after I've made my travel arrangements," Mulder said, "I could let you know when my flight is coming in."

It didn't sound very romantic; however, Fox Mulder and Marianne Krieger were both way older than I was. They were both about Giles's age, and I'm guessing had a completely different language than teenagers like me and Buffy. I'm pretty sure this was flirting for people in Agent Mulder's age group.

* * *

Eventually Buffy woke up. She barely remembered anything about being merged with the lord of the Wild Hunt. She seemed to return to normal (or what qualifies for normal here in Sunnydale), and she resumed her life of going to class, studying for tests, hanging out at the Bronze, going shoe-shopping at the mall, and having sex and smoochies with me.

Anexeana died in combat with the trolls. Agent Mulder called an ambulance and had her body taken to the morgue. Her glamour was still in effect, even though she was dead and cold. The FBI was utterly confused by her corpse, as it was a perfect match for Maggie Walsh, who was still very much alive. Anexeana even had fingerprints that were utterly identical to Maggie Walsh's fingerprints.

Elisedd also died in combat, which meant that Giles's debt to Elisedd had died as well. With Elisedd dead, Giles no longer owed anything to any of the denizens of the faerie.

The dragon incinerated most of the evidence of demons, vampires and other paranormal stuff here in Sunnydale, which meant that Agent Mulder wasn't believed when he filed an FBI report, claiming that he had seen trolls, demons and vampires here in Sunnydale. The corpse of the Scuttleomorph mysteriously disappeared from Giles's apartment, and the corpse of the dragon mysteriously disappeared from the old abandoned zoo. Giles thinks that somebody was deliberately going around and disposing of evidence, but he has no idea who would be doing such a thing, or why.

Before he went back to Washington DC, Agent Mulder suggested that I write down some of my paranormal experiences here in Sunnydale, and post them on the internet. At first, I thought this was a crazy idea. I told Agent Mulder that the people on the internet don't want to read about disturbing truths, they want to read about comforting lies.

However, Agent Mulder thinks that there are people out there who are dying to know about my story, and will gobble up every word of it. Maybe he's right. Maybe people want to know about the Hellmouth, and the people who try to survive here.

Is he right? Is there anybody out there? Is there anybody reading my story?