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MAYAN LAND,
THE DAY OF THE BREACH
The fire is low now. Smoke coils upward, the clearing scented with burnt sap. Mateo speaks without preamble: "Young one, your thread is curling in on itself."
Buffy sits with her arms wrapped around her legs, chin resting lightly on her knee. Her body appears calm, but restlessness pulses inside.
Lucía adds, as if continuing a thought: "And the path is starting to hear your footsteps."
Across the fire, Lucía stirs a bundle of herbs without looking at her. Mateo sits cross-legged beside her, gently coaxing the coals. Their daughter Itzel leans back on her hands, shiny hair cascading down one shoulder, watching the sky.
Buffy raises her eyebrows. "So... nothing ominous at all, then."
Itzel smirks. Mateo ignores her.
"You're near the ending, but not the kind you've known before."
"Right," Buffy says, lifting her chin. "You mean the ending that's actually a beginning. Or a fruit. Or a mirror that is also a sword."
Lucía laughs. "You've been listening."
Years in the jungle and the elders never rush her, never guard their knowing with locked doors.
She has walked in carrying burnout, heartbreak, and still telling herself to keep killing, because what else was left?
The Keepers, recognizing something kindred in her soul, opened the archive of their language. Every sunrise lesson, every midnight vigil, they wait as long as it takes for her to grasp a single syllable of wisdom guarded for centuries.
Patience like that is wild generosity, she tells herself. Grace.
Their guidance comes with effortless forbearance, shot through with playful mischief; when they challenge her, it is with fierce clarity rather than anger. They meet her boldest inquiries with knowing laughter, turning riddles into windows, and they welcome her as a worthy daughter of the eternal, an equal at the fire. Their trust humbles her more than any victory ever has.
Buffy exhales. "Hard not to, after this many years in the jungle."
Lucía nods. "And the listening conjured the silent bridge between us all."
When she just arrived she figured the Keepers must’ve been desperate, handing their oldest truths to some gringa who barely knew where to step. But later she got it. They hadn’t pulled her in just to sit and memorize. They wanted her to carry it back, fold it into the Slayer line, make it live past these clearings. She wasn’t just the student. She was the bridge. And it still shakes her, sometimes, to be trusted with light this old.
Buffy reaches toward the fire with a twig, nudging a coal. "I'm still listening," she says quietly. "But something's off."
Lucía meets her eyes. "Wait. Let it speak."
"I don't know what it means," Buffy says finally. "The dreams, this edge I'm on… I'm trying not to need to know."
Lucía nods once. That's the only way through.
She rolls her shoulders back, lifting her face to the emerald canopy where scarlet macaws wheel crimson against the pale sky, then stands, brushing her hands off on her thighs. "I have a mission in a few hours. Europe. Spiny demons. Should be a nice break from introspection."
A rustle of leaves draws her gaze to a flight of green parakeets skimming the treetops. She tracks their arc, trying to glimpse beyond the horizon.
As she turns to go, Itzel holds out a half-burnt spliff, smoke curling from the tip. Buffy gives her a look.
Itzel just raises one eyebrow. "Seems like the moment for it." Buffy takes it. Inhales slow. The taste is earthy, sharp, with a little something floral that hits high and light.
Buffy exhales some, trying not to cough it all out. "That's jungle clarity."
"Fresh picked," Itzel smiles. "For... you know. Alchemical jitter management."
Buffy leans down, kisses the top of Itzel's head. "You're a goddess."
"And an herbalist," Itzel corrects.
Smoke lingers in Buffy's chest as she starts down the limestone path toward her hut. A playful breeze lifts her hair; she tips her face to the canopy, closes her eyes, and lets the last curl of breath slip free.
With each step the wind coaxes the tension from her shoulders, muscles uncoiling in quiet surrender to the sun.
The loose cotton layers are gone. In their place: sleek, dark combat gear. High-collared, close-fitted, unadorned. Boots laced high, soles already mud-caked.
Buffy steps out of the trees first, her presence cutting clean through the green. The clearing opens in front of them, still empty. No rotors yet. Just the afternoon sky and the distant echo of something incoming.
Rhea steps up beside her, tugging at the strap across her chest. Her dark shirt clings at the collar. She exhales, eyes scanning the trees.
They haven't seen each other since that last patrol along the beach road in Tulum. Quiet night. Nothing but a stray vamp near the north tip cenote and too much moonlight to ignore. Since then, Rhea had gotten steadier with the astral bleed-throughs, no longer flinching when the visions brushed too close.
"They know," Rhea says after a beat. "The animals. They hear it before we do."
Buffy glances sideways. "The chopper?"
Rhea shrugs. “Not the chopper. Something else. The air shifts for them first.”
Buffy doesn't look over, but her mouth curves slightly. "At least there are fewer tourists screaming in the background."
"You dreaming weird?" Rhea asks.
Buffy's nod is almost imperceptible. "Three nights straight. Not slayer dreams."
"Me too," Rhea murmurs. "Like memory... but wrong."
Buffy turns to her then, gaze sharp. "You think it's the line?"
Rhea looks down. A gust stirs the branches above them, and the distant whir of rotor blades hums through the trees.
"We'll know soon enough," she says.
"Yeah." Buffy traces a finger across the small Merkaba pendant at her chest, a cool crystal. Jungle-forged. Six points, balance, movement, stillness. As above, so below. A reminder of what she has become. Not just the slayer. A bridge between what was and what could be. Between the war and the peace that will follow.
The clearing ahead glints faintly from the earlier rain.
Rhea doesn't look up. Just tilts her head slightly, and in the space between breath and sound, Buffy feels the flicker, sharp and clean across the network. Rhea's voice, quiet and unspoken: Three nights?
Buffy nods once.
Like a countdown.
The noise swells. Leaves rustle as animals move deeper into the shadows.
Buffy flexes her fingers. Rhea reaches for her gloves.
Before they move, Rhea's voice brushes gently against Buffy's mind.
Ready?
Buffy's shoulder nudges just slightly into Rhea's as they step forward.
So ready.
Buffy steps up into the helicopter first, ducking through the door. Her hand catches the frame, slides onto the bench just left of the door, dropping her pack between her boots.
The air inside is cooler, metal and oil, tinged with static and the low whir of systems warming up.
Rhea climbs in behind her and crosses to the bench directly across. She moves without hesitation and settles in, one boot hooked on the seat frame, her back loose but ready.
Zara is already in the corner seat next to Buffy, eyes flicking between the treeline and the digital overlay on her HUD glasses. She gives a nod that says finally, then turns back to the window.
Andrew sits in the back, angled toward the middle, a tactical tablet glowing in his lap. He mutters something about tracker latency and smacks the casing with the flat of his hand.
Buffy leans back slightly, her eyes meet Rhea's across the narrow cabin.
Zara speaks without turning. "You've been lighting up the network for three days."
Buffy frowns. "I haven't sent anything."
"You didn't have to." Zara's tone stays mild. "You've been... loud. Like feedback through a speaker."
Buffy cringes slightly. "Oops. Sorry for the brain spam."
Andrew glances up. "Dream stuff?"
Buffy doesn't answer.
Rhea does. "Network's been humming for days."
Her muscles already ache. That old, electric thrum under her skin, restless and waiting. It hasn't been that long since the last mission, but the momentum has a gravity of its own. She clocks the way her body leans toward motion, even now. Toward whatever comes next.
Across from her, Rhea has stilled. Zara tracks something beyond the treeline. Andrew swipes through blue-green overlays, his jaw tight with focus.
"Coordinates locked," he mutters. "Target: Old Town, Brussels. Northern quadrant. Roofline activity confirmed."
Buffy closes her eyes just for a breath.
Outside, the wind shifts. Not natural wind, something sharper. The sky ahead begins to ripple, thin, and stretch.
Then the sky tears, white and soundless, their express ticket to Europe, no layovers.
A vertical seam opens in the air. Light pours through, impossibly deep. The chopper tilts forward. Nose-first into the rift.
Buffy opens her eyes as they cross the threshold. Noise vanishes. Heat. Color. Self.
For a moment, there is nothing. Then the portal seals behind them with a soft, breathy pop and the jungle clearing stands empty again.
A long beat passes. Then, all at once, the frogs begin to sing.
OLD TOWN BRUSSELS,
THE NIGHT OF THE BREACH
The mark is fast. Buffy is faster.
It vaults over an alley, claws scraping tile, spines rattling in the wind. Two meters tall, insectoid build, though vaguely humanoid. Iridescent under the moon. Definitely collector class. Probably feeding. Or showing off.
She hits the ground running the second the portal spits them out above the old quarter; a midair drop, soft shimmer still closing behind the copter as it veers skyward to circle. No time to orient. Just rooftops, motion, instinct.
Buffy clears the gap without breaking stride, landing hard on the next roof. Cracked tile shifts under her boots, but her footing holds. The wind snaps at her ponytail, pulls at her clothes.
"Heading northeast," Zara says through comms. "Cutting across the ridge line."
"Rhea, push it to the cathedral," Buffy says, breath steady. "Zara, flank south."
She taps her mic again. "Spike, eyes?"
"Got 'em," comes the reply, rough with effort. "Ugly bastard nearly clipped me, think it's looking for the portal residual. Might've tracked the jump."
Buffy grits her teeth. "Let's not make this a habit."
"And Spike, hold the bell tower."
There is a pause.
Then, like static breaking into a grin: "Already there, love."
Buffy smirks just a little.
Across the rooftops, under the stone cross of the bell tower, a silhouette detaches from shadow. Black coat flaring. Platinum hair gleaming faintly in the moonlight. Spike drops into a crouch and gives a lazy two-finger salute to no one in particular.
"Tell your bug friend to pick a better hiding spot. This one's already got my name on it."
The demon shrieks and bolts right, toward the cathedral. Just as planned.
Buffy pushes forward, boots slamming rhythmically. The hunt is on.
Below, in the dark maze of the old town, Andrew's voice follows. "Eyewitnesses reported 'bone wings and glowing eyes.' I give it a 7.8 for creep factor."
Buffy ignores him.
The demon hits the cathedral wall at full speed, claws digging into the stone. It climbs like a spider on adrenaline.
Buffy scales a drainpipe on the east face, catches the edge, swings up onto the ledge. No hesitation.
Across the tower, Spike emerges from shadow, already climbing, boots digging into age-worn brick.
"Welcome to the party," he says.
Buffy doesn't smile. She is in kill mode.
The creature bursts into the bell tower, limbs scraping as it squeezes through the arch. Dust rains down. Stone fractures.
Buffy enters one breath later.
It turns fast, too fast, cornered.
Zara moves in from the right. Rhea from above, descending the inner stair. Spike blocks the exit.
The team doesn't need orders. This is a containment drill. Everyone knows their role.
The creature lunges. Wrong move.
Buffy ducks under its reach, slashes low, cuts tendon. It shrieks, high-pitched, too human. Rhea hits it from above, knocking it off balance. Spike follows with a kick to the chest that sends it sprawling.
The demon launches from the shadows, all jagged limbs and snapping mandibles. But Spike is already moving.
In one clean, brutal strike, he ducks low and drives his blade up between its ribs. A sickening crack. Black blood sprays across the bell tower wall. The creature spasms once, then collapses in a twitching heap.
Spike straightens, chest heaving, a grin spreading across his face. "That's right. Still got it." He turns, smug and sharp-edged, brushing a line of black ichor off his coat with deliberate flair. Just in time to see Buffy standing frozen, blinking like she's been hit by a shockwave.
No smile, no response. She doesn't even move.
Spike tilts his head. "What? You wanted the kill? Didn't know we were keeping score."
Still no answer. Her entire body has gone still, not in challenge, but in some strange, internal recoil.
He steps closer, confusion flickering behind his eyes. "Buffy?"
Her breath has slowed. Spike can see it now, something is wrong. Deeper than battle, deeper than ego.
Andrew's voice crackles over the comms, nervous and too loud. "Buffy? What was that?"
She doesn't respond.
Across the tower, Rhea drops to one knee with a sharp gasp, her hand flying to her head. From the other side, Zara's voice rings out, strained and thin: "Something's wrong, my head,"
"It's too loud—" Rhea's voice breaks mid-sentence, her breath hitching.
Buffy's hand clutches at her chest.
Spike steps closer, posture shifting. "The line. It's not just noise, is it?" he asks, voice low now, stripped of bravado. "They're hitting the bloody network."
Buffy doesn't answer.
Her whole body locks. Then lurches.
She turns, doubles over, and vomits hard onto the rooftop, jungle herbs burning with adrenaline as they splatter across old stone.
The network screams inside her skull.
By the time she straightens, her lips are chalk white, her eyes glassed with pain. Her breath comes in sharp, shallow bursts.
Spike stands still. Watching.
Something unspoken passes between them. A knowing. Something powerful has ruptured.
And it is inside her.
The interior of the helicopter buzzes, the lights are dimmed. The wind outside howls against the hull like it is angry.
Buffy sits with arms wrapped around one knee. Her gear is still on. Blood, not hers, streaks across her vest. The silence between the team is tight but not strained. No one is sleeping.
Beneath the physical throb of the engines she tracks a second vibration: the psychic shock still blooming through the slayer network. It lingers as a pressure behind her sternum.
Memory fragments flicker of bones crunching under impossible force, automatic fire rattling like a morbid lullaby, thoughts scrabbling for air, and then the suffocating stillness that follows. Everything she and the slayers tasted through the link is violent, brutal, merciless. Every nerve in her body recognizes it as something alive and hungry.
Spike's absence creates its own odd silence; they have off-loaded him in a Normandy hayfield a moment ago, just before Andrew opened the portal coordinates. Spike swaggered away toward a shuttered depot, tossing a lazy salute, "Try not to let the world implode before brunch, yeah?" then jogged for the treeline, coat snapping. The moment the skids left the ground again, a hush settled over the cabin, as if his sarcasm had been the last thread holding ordinary tension together.
Now the team hovers in a holding pattern, rotors thundering while Andrew mutters at his slate. "Next portal's on standby," he says, frowning at static-laced glyphs. "HQ's pushing an emergency report, but the link's throttled. They're basically shouting through sludge."
The echo of the psychic attack still lives in her ribs, pulsing nausea through every breath. Across the cabin, Rhea faces the window, profile in red light, scowl etched between her brows as if she could glare the night into submission.
Nearby, Zara crouches forward with her face buried in shaky hands; the fine tremor of her shoulders leaves Buffy guessing whether she is about to sob or retch. Zara’s HUD glasses slide down her nose. Her eyes flick to Buffy, wide.
"I just saw Cairo rooftops," she whispers, voice thin. "Stone domes, smell of diesel.… Christ, I could feel the drop under my feet, like I was about to fall." Zara shakes her head, disgust flickering. “But I’ve never been there.”
Buffy’s gut knots. Wrong place, wrong memory.
Then a flicker.
Her comm crackles.
A pulse of warmth shimmers into her awareness like a candle being lit just beyond her shoulder.
Then: Willow's voice. Soft. Tight.
"Buffy. Can you talk?"
Buffy turns her head slightly. "I'm here."
The voice isn't in her ear. It isn't in her head either. It is threaded through her field, like a memory made present.
"Buffy… the network was hit. Something got in."
Buffy closes her eyes.
"The recovery group felt it hardest. Faith and Angel tried to hold them steady, but the network buckled. The network isn’t sealed anymore."
Buffy exhales, slow. "I felt it."
"Not just you. For a second it was like, like, a gap in reality opened."
Buffy closes her eyes. "A breach?"
"We don't know yet. Giles is gathering intelligence. Faith's been steadying the core team at the compound. They're... shaken."
"Whatever this was, it reverberated." Willow continues. "It’s bleeding through. Things that aren’t theirs."
Buffy swallows. Her throat feels tight.
"We need you back at the compound," Willow says. "Tonight."
There is a pause.
She nods once. "Tell Faith I'm on my way."
SLAYER HEALING COMPOUND,
SIERRA NEVADA
The shifts hit her first in the head, then in the chest. Normandy’s damp chill still clings to her skin, but underneath it she can feel the day layered in her body: the Caribbean’s dense heat, the silver stillness of Brussels night. Too many climates, too many worlds at once.
By the time the portal jump ends, the helicopter is rumbling through a mountain pass, blades slicing the thinning air as the last light catches sharp against the Sierra Nevada.
Above them, dusk bleeds into a deepening river of violet, the first stars beginning to prickle at the edges.
Buffy touches her pendent. The whirring of the engines fills the cabin as they approach the compound, but the steady, breathing network of slayers stretched across the world is louder still in Buffy’s head.
Around her, her team are in their own quiet orbits. Andrew muttering over a survival guide, Zara staring out the window, Rhea meditating, palms up in her lap. All of them tuned into the hum in different ways.
The chopper banks slightly, engines dipping into a gentler whine.
Buffy leans toward the porthole, cheek resting against cool metal.
The mountain range stretches below like the spine of an ancient being, lit by the last fractured light of day. Half-veiled by mist, held tight in the arms of forest and stone.
The whole place seems to breathe.
Buffy stares.
Seven years since she walked away. Almost to the day.
She hasn't set foot here since. Not physically. And now her body responds before her mind. Her shoulders tense, stomach flipping once, quietly.
There is no danger in sight. But something has shifted.
Not the place, but her.
She touches her sternum. Feels the tingle there, of the breach, of the loss, of Willow calling her home. Of Angel somewhere below, walking the paths they have once carved together.
The compound looms closer.
The helicopter's skids touch down with a muted thump. Rotor wash kicks dust into the sharp mountain air.
The door slides open with a hiss, and cool air pours in. She sits still for half a breath, letting the way the pines smell around her again tickle her memory. How the dry wind moves differently here.
Buffy unbuckles in one practiced motion, lifting her pack and stepping down into the wind. Zara unbuckles beside her and drops low. Rhea stands in one smooth motion. Andrew tugs on his harness like it might bite him. Without a word, the team moves.
Across the slayer network, a thread of chatter sparks.
There she is.
In the flesh.
Armor and jungle pendant. We love a contradiction.
Give her five minutes. She'll be barefoot like the rest of us.
A small group gathers just beyond the firelit path. The familiar silhouettes framed by dusk and lantern glow.
Faith stands forward, arms at her sides, her loose pants fluttering in the breeze. Angel a step behind her, still and unreadable. A few senior slayers flank them, quiet and steady.
She looks like she has just walked off a war zone.
Faith was already moving, crossing the landing terrace in long, sure strides, her loose pants whispering around her ankles, her dimples deepening as her grin spread.
"Bout damn time," Faith says, her voice rough with affection as she wraps her arms around Buffy and holds on. Buffy holds her back just as tightly.
And for a blink, as Faith’s arms lock tight around her, Buffy hears a chorus of other Slayers breathing with them. Not in sync, but jagged and fractured. The link feels crowded, almost predatory. Then it slips away, leaving only Faith’s heartbeat thudding steady against her shoulder.
When they finally let go, Faith steps back, giving Buffy a once-over. "You look good," Faith says, "Ferally unstable. But good."
Buffy snorts, already lighter.
The air feels storm-before-breaking heavy. Right, Buffy thinks. Reunion vibes, blackout lighting.
Faith eases out of the knot of senior Slayers and meets Buffy's eyes again, fingers squeezing her shoulder in brief, iron-steady solidarity. "Last time I saw you, you were mid-mud dive, dodging fireballs in Guatemala," she says, voice scraped raw from the day.
The attempt at levity clangs against the quiet, but Buffy leans into it anyway, grateful for the contact even as the compound's tension presses her.
She laughs, the memory loud and ridiculous in her mind. "You tackled me."
"Strategic move. You were overheating."
"Was not."
And then, Angel.
He shifts from where he’s been waiting by the treeline, stepping closer into the lantern glow. Barefoot on the stone, sleeves rolled back. No coat. No leather. Just him, alive.
Still and steady, his presence pulses deep inside her chest. She slows without meaning to.
Her boots feel too loud. Her suit, too tight. Like she is still dressed for a world that doesn't belong here.
Oh, says someone in the network.
There it is.
Please tell me someone's recording her aura right now.
Y'all, I swear she just exhaled thirty years of unresolved tension.
Angel’s eyes lock with hers, his hands opening slow, certain, as she steps into his embrace.
Buffy leans into him like gravity, feels his arms wrapping around her shoulders, fitting perfectly. A heartbeat passes.
"You feel stronger."
Buffy blinks. "Yeah," she says, her voice lower than she means. "So do you."
These Two.
Like a goddamned novella. But under the chorus, something mutters like static loud inside her ears.
Angel smiles, looking down and a stillness hangs between them. Buffy lets her fingers drift down the seam of his sleeve before stepping back.
Great. They're soul-gazing. We'll never get to dinner.
And then, a sharp whistle. Faith.
Her grin is slower now, almost fond. She strides forward, eyes flicking between them. "If you two start writing poetry, I'm moving back to Brazil."
Angel inclines his head slightly, the corners of his mouth still softened. Buffy's smile stays quiet and restrained.
Faith reaches and slings an arm around her shoulders in a loose, familiar loop, already turning them toward the path that curves up to the compound.
"Come on. Let's get you out of this tactical cosplay before you trigger one of the inner cohort. We're a little... less hardcore these days," she says, her voice measured.
Buffy mutters, a tired flicker of humor surfacing. "I missed the linen cult memo, okay?"
"Healing compound rules. Flowing organic fabrics. Bare feet. Occasional ecstatic dance."
Buffy arches an eyebrow at her, dry.
"How ecstatic?"
Faith winks without missing a beat.
She tips her head slightly and says, "Got something cleaner. Softer. If you want it."
Faith's grin fades slightly, her tone shifting. "Some of the slayers get twitchy around combat gear," she says.
Buffy's chest tightens. She nods once, serious. PTSD doesn’t mix well with kevlar chic. The residents came here to heal, not feel like they’re still deployed. "I get it," she says softly.
Faith bumps her shoulder again, lighter this time, knocking a little of the weight loose. “We’ll deprogram you. Starts tomorrow. Half the line’s already gone dark till we get this under control. Willow and Angel are keeping the rest from frying.”
Faith jerks a thumb toward the faint glint of lights through the trees. "Vintage shop's still there. Couple new spots too. You want, we'll fix you up."
Buffy raises both eyebrows now, amused. "I'd like to see you fix me up."
Faith softens. "You'll like it. Dresses with pockets. Apocalypse-ready."
Buffy walks between Faith and Angel, as the team falls into step around her, Andrew chattering nervously, Zara casting wide-eyed glances at the sprawling compound, Rhea calm and steady as ever.
The compound opens ahead, stone and garden alive with heartbeat.
As they cross into the threshold of the overflowing gardens, Buffy feels the slayer network stir inside her. Faith shoots her a sideways grin.
Welcome home, B.
Buffy smiles, feeling the truth of it, but also the sickness beneath, restless and wrong. Home isn’t safe, not yet.