Chapter Text
Like a black fog, it seeped into Buffy's mind.
But unlike a black fog, it noticed her. Turned on her. Grabbed for her.
Buffy screamed.
Then she realized — she hadn't screamed. Hadn't even moved! Something was in her mind, its fingers deep inside her head, a something that began to absorb her thoughts, fiddle around with them, manipulate them, change them. Buffy tried to scream, again, tried to struggle, tried to claw at the other presence in her mind so she could get free. But she couldn't move. She couldn't scream. There was someone else inside her, someone else making her breathe, making her move, making her think, and she couldn't…
The light turned on, and her mother walked into the room. "Buffy, sweetie, what's wrong?"
Buffy jolted upright in bed, a cold sweat dripping down her face.
"I… I…"
Then Buffy looked down at the bed, where she realized she had struggled her way out of the covers. Her throat was hoarse from screaming. She tried to move her arm. It moved, just the way it was supposed to. She tried to take a deep breath, and yes, that worked, too. She could control her own body. She was still her.
"Buffy?" her mother pressed.
"Sorry, just…" Buffy faltered. Then plastered a grin on her face. "Nightmare," she decided. "Definitely a nightmare."
But, of course, nightmares can come true.
You know that, don't you, Yersitraysin?
3920.
"Non-Gallifreyan Prisoner 3920," the lift announced, descending through the detention facility. The lift halted, then whirred and clicked with final security checks.
Yersitraysin clutched the note that she'd found, in her room — those few paragraphs about "Buffy". Yersitraysin had never heard of "Buffy", before, but after what had happened, last night, she needed to know more.
"Visitor approval verified," the lift announced, as the doors squeaked open. "You have 1 span before you will be forced to vacate the cell."
The prisoner sat, back to the door, writing at a desk in the middle of a spherical cell with glowing teal walls, an innocuous bookcase at one corner, and an armchair at the far side. The prisoner turned in her own chair, to face her visitor.
Yersitraysin stared. "Oh." She stepped inside. "But you look…"
"Not as alien as you expected?" The prisoner swept back her long hair. "No, I'm not. You're not who I expected, either, though." She rested her hands on the back of the chair. "What have they told you? Do you even know why I'm here?"
"They said… the Doctor," said Yersitraysin. "He's why you're in here."
The prisoner's mouth twitched, at the name. "The Doctor. Yes…" She shook her head, and dismissed the topic. "But enough of that. So, Yersitraysin — I hear that, last night, you thought you were being possessed. Except… of course… you weren't."
Yersitraysin pulled up the armchair, and sat beside the prisoner.
"Please," Yersitraysin begged, "what's happening to me? What do you know about it?" She met the prisoner's eyes. "Tell me about the dream."
"It wasn't a dream," Buffy told Giles in the library, the next day. "I know what I felt. Something tried to possess me, last night."
In a large, circular library in Sunnydale, California, on the planet Earth, Giles (Buffy's mentor) cleaned his glasses against his shirt, as he sat at the table in the center of the room.
Beside him, halfway up a ladder attached to a tall bookcase, the far more clean-cut Wesley — Buffy's officially assigned mentor, who could never really take the place of Giles — was pulling out an ancient book.
"There is a prophecy…" Wesley tried his best to open the book and balance it against the ladder. "…here! 'Before the dawning of the new millennium, the Maer'Isa will open, and a noble soul will be lost to it. As Mars treks through the sky, towards…'"
Wesley lost his grip on the book and the ladder, and both him — and it — crashed onto the floor.
Giles, with a sigh, picked up the book. He glanced at the passage. "Maer'Isa," he muttered. Then shook the book at Wesley. "This artifact hasn't been seen since the 16th century! Honestly, of all the—"
Buffy swooped in and grabbed the book from Giles. Her face went white, as she studied the page — or, rather, the artist rendering of the Maer'Isa that was on the page.
"Or, you know, maybe two weeks ago," Buffy said, putting the book down on the table. "In my house."
Wesley and Giles froze, staring at her.
Buffy swung her arms, nervously. "What? I mean, it didn't look powerful or anything. It was, like… you know… plastic. Tacky. Like an Ikea-style demon charm."
"Buffy," said Wesley, jumping to his feet, "are you telling me that you have this object in your possession? Right now?"
Buffy didn't meet their eyes, as she toyed with a wooden stake, awkwardly. "Not… exactly…"
"You chucked it in the bin, didn't you?" Giles muttered. He pinched the bridge of his nose, with a sigh.
"Hey!" Buffy spread open her arms. "I told you, it didn't look all demon charmmy or end-the-worldy. It looked cheap. And I was kind of angry at Angel, so I…"
"You're saying you received a mystical amulet from Angel, with immense and unknown powers," Giles clarified, "and you threw it away, because you rowed with him and thought it looked 'tacky'?"
Buffy decided it was probably better not to answer this.
How was she supposed to know it was dangerous? Seriously! Her pencils weren't evil, and they looked a lot more valuable and important than that charm.
Although… then again…
Buffy eyed her pencils, suspiciously.
Wesley yanked the book out of Giles' hands. "It says, here, that the possessed's name must, first, be inscribed onto the outside of the Maer'Isa, before it can possess you." He squinted at the small text. "'For the soul is bound unto that name, and must come when summoned. So say the Epoch.'"
"Epoch?" asked Time Lady Yersitraysin.
The prisoner paused, in her story. "You've never run into Irving Braxiatel?"
Yersitraysin shook her head. "I've heard of him, but…"
"Ask him, sometime, about the Epoch," the prisoner prompted. "A fascinating story — assuming he tells you the truth. Quite the adventure."
"What was the name inscribed onto the outside, Buffy?" Giles asked.
Buffy grimaced. "Squiggle-squiggle-circley thing?" She shrugged. "I didn't take 'demon' as my foreign language elective. So… your guess is as good as mine."
Wesley coughed, loudly, trying to draw back their attention. "Upon activation," he continued to read, "the Maer'Isa would make you feel caged within your own mind, as if your own soul were… unable… to control…"
Wesley trailed off.
Then, a little nervously, he backed away from Buffy, raising the book in front of him — like a shield.
"I'm not possessed," Buffy insisted. She crossed her arms, in irritation. "It didn't work."
Giles looked her up and down. "She certainly sounds like herself."
"Another feature of the Maer'Isa, I'm afraid," said Wesley, still backing away. "The possessor will sound and act just as the victim once did. The possessor gains access to every memory and scrap of personality left inside the soul-less body."
So… great.
Even though Buffy knew she was herself, there was no way to prove it.
"I so don't have time for this," Buffy decided. She spun on her heels, heading out of the library. "The Mayor is going to Ascend in a week and go all with the evil and the killiness. I got stuff to do."
"And then Buffy left the library," the prisoner explained. She lowered her head onto her hands. "To find the Doctor."
Yersitraysin started. "The Doctor?!"
"Of course," said the prisoner, her voice low and pointed. "The Doctor. You remember: the reason I'm here."