"My, what synchronization. Since it seems you all work so well together, why don't you all show up wearing matching costumes, too?" Snyder's tone allowed no argument.
"Well, I couldn't help but notice that there is a lack of Power Ranger costumes. Sure, there are the Villains and Putty costumes that are already all off the shelf, but not Power Ranger. These...are the Wrist Communicators the Power Rangers have when in civilian dress. We could go as the civilian Power Rangers. Are you getting this?" he asked just to twist Cordelia's chain, as though she were comprehension-challenged.
"Chaos. I remain, as ever, they faithful, degenerate son."
"Janus, evoco vestram animam. Exaudi meam causam. Carpe noctem pro consilio vestro. Veni, appare et nobis monstra quod est infinita potestas." (Janus, I invoke your spirit. Hear my plea. Seize the night for your own reason. Come, appear and show to us that which is infinite power.)
"Persona se corpum et sanguium commutandum est. Vestra sancta praesentia concrescet viscera. Janus! Sume noctem!" (The mask transforms itself into flesh and blood. Your holy presence curdles the heart. Janus! Take the night!)
"Showtime!"
Thunder roared as the Rangers transformed.
Xander: "White Slayer Power!"
Cordelia: "Pink Slayer Power!"
Oz: "Black Slayer Power!"
Willow: "Blue Slayer Power!"
Amy: "Yellow Slayer Power!"
Buffy: "Red Slayer Power!" A blinding flash of light, and a rainbow stream of energy surrounded the teens for a moment before the Slayer Rangers suddenly stood before the horde of Putties and demon.
"FIRE!!!" all six shouted at once and a rainbow of six colors shot out of the gun.
The beam went completely through the first demon. He began to flame as if caught in sunlight. The beam came out of his back and immediately divided into two beams identical to the one fired from the Ranger's super-weapon. These beams hit the next two nearest demons where the same thing happened. Again and again. The result was a brilliant rainbow web of destruction connecting all the demons for several seconds.
"I want in. I can't just stand by while...demons keep trying to destroy the world and do nothing."
"...I can't just sit by and wait to be rescued by you guys while you're trying to save the world at the same time."
"I'm in too," was all Oz said. He had a look that was similar to Willow's "Resolve Face".
Unseen and unnoticed by anyone, at the moment the newest official Slayerette stood up to her "flock of sheep", the coin that Xander had given to her, which she had kept close to her even as she slept, glowed a brief rainbow of colors before returning to a soft pinkish glow for the duration of the conflict before fading away as she and Xander walked away.
The coin in Xander's back pocket, in Amy, Buffy, and Willow's purses, and Oz's pick-case, a similar phenomenon happened at the exact same moment to their individual coins that they also had kept close. The flash of rainbow colors, before each settled on a specific and individual color.
"And now, Today on Slayer Rangers:"
Buffy stood alone in front of the grave plot. The filled in grave. Willow had found out that Ford had run away from home, chasing her so he could find his "cure". Becoming a vampire. She remembered the Fords; they were too good of people to be told what had really happened to their only son. She had decided that it was better for them to think he was still out there somewhere. Instead of here, in this unmarked grave.
Not that he would be there for much longer.
Buffy heard the footsteps approaching, but didn't react until she was completely surrounded. Then she just looked up at the people before her. "Hey," she whispered hoarsely.
Cordelia stepped forward and gave the blonde Slayer a friendly hug from behind. She still said she blamed it on being the Pink Ranger for a night, but Cordelia Chase had become a much better person and one of Buffy Summer's best friends since Halloween. And coincidentally, since she and Xander Harris had started dating. Even if the couple only called it "hanging out with a good friend. NOT dating!"
"I'm sorry," Cordy whispered as she let go of the embrace.
"Not your fault," Buffy automatically remarked. "It's mine. I should have..."
"Bullshit, Buffy!" Xander snapped angrily, stepping forward. She looked up at him, surprised.
"It's Ford's fault. He is the one that made the deal with Spike, betrayed you, and tried to kill all of us with that steel door trap!" he told her. "The only thing you could possibly be guilty of is that you trusted someone you thought was a friend, and there's nothing wrong with that Buffy. Because for every friend that betrays you," Xander paused as he looked around, and Giles stepped forward out of the shadows, "you've got six more that you can count on for anything."
"He's right Buffy," Amy spoke up. "You can't blame yourself for this. We may not have saved everyone, but we saved a lot of lives, and souls last night. Nobody can save everyone, no matter how good or powerful they are. And sometimes the enemy..." Amy's voice broke as she remembered someone in particular, "...sometimes the bad guy isn't always clear cut. Sometimes they wear the face of someone very close. Closer than we often think." Buffy realized Amy was talking about her mother just as much as she was talking about Ford, and she understood. The Slayer smiled and nodded, grateful to all her friends. Just then, her gut twinged and she palmed her stake.
"Thanks guys," she whispered just as Ford the vampire burst out of his grave. Before he was fully standing her stake was in and out of his chest, and by the time he was fully standing, he was already crumbling to dust. "I feel better now," she whispered and turned to leave the graveyard. The Slayerettes followed her.
Amy came into the Library during her lunch period. She walked up to the counter where Giles was working on something library-y. "Giles, I need to talk to you. In your office, please."
Giles looked a little surprised at this, but he quietly ushered her into his office and they sat down.
"Giles, I've been thinking about things the last couple of days. I'm thinking that there's more that I could do to help out."
"Surely not, you've been training as hard as the others, patrolling, researching, everything."
"But I haven't been giving as much as I can. I've got a question for you. Is talent for magic inherited? How about talent for Black Magic?"
Giles was quite surprised by the questions, and he took a moment to consider his response. "Yes, you're quite right that talent for magic can be inherited. As for the other: Absolutely not. Magic is magic in that respect. The whitest of White witches could have a daughter who is blackest of the Black. And vice versa. You needn't worry about becoming your mother."
Amy appeared relieved with this information. "Would it help to have an ethical teacher? What I'm getting up the courage to ask: Do you think you can teach me magic?"
Giles appeared to be somewhat uncomfortable about this request. "I hardly think I would be the best of teachers for that subject."
"You did OK in undoing my mothers work."
"Hmmm, yes, well... I might know of someone else who could teach you. I would have to talk to her first. Her style and taste in magic seem a bit odd to me, since I am a traditionalist. But if you are determined to learn magic, I will find you a teacher that will teach you well."
"Thanks, Giles. This makes me feel so much better." She touched his arm and smiled at him.
Willow was going through her schoolbag sorting out the homework she still had to do, laying it all out on her bed at home. It had been just a few days since the gathering at Ford's unmarked grave. School was pretty much the same, but everything else had undergone some major changes: For starters, both before school and right after, all of the Slayerettes, former Slayer Rangers for one night, gathered at the Library for Giles to instruct them inthe same martial arts and slaying weaponry as a beginning Slayer. They were different from a Slayer in that they had neither Slayer strength, nor her instinctive grasp of weapon skills. But they were already well advanced in martial arts, so in some ways had it easier than a beginning Slayer. But Buffy was still much more advanced than them. Basic exercise however was the same for all of them, even though Buffy could go for longer and with more enthusiasm than any of the others could. There was also patrol. They had a rotating schedule where everyone had at least one night a week off, including Buffy. Usually at least two other people and Buffy would be on patrol. Angel usually paired with Buffy on nights when the other two were a guy and girl, especially when the ranger pair was Xander and Cordelia. Some weekend nights they had two patrols, communicating with the cell phones that Willow had gotten. She had managed to get some long-range engineering prototypes that would never go into production. The phones also operated as two-way radios, and were quite rugged. These and other bleeding-edge features meant the phones would have been much too expensive for full production for several years. Given the results, not even Jenny Calendar, the only other adult to know of the Slayer and the undead underground and Willow's role model, asked any questions on how she had gotten the communication devices.
The name "Slayerettes" had come to mean mostly Willow and Xander, while "Rangers" meant the entire group, including Buffy.
The patrols had been very light since Halloween. They saw only a couple of vampires a week, not counting Angel. Giles told them that they had eliminated practically the entire hostile demon population of Sunnydale on Halloween night, and that it might take a while for it to build up again. This left them with more time for training; both individual and as a group. Giles was lacking considerably on group fighting as compared to individual martial arts, but they were coming along nicely in that area as well. Just as Willow was emptying the last of her schoolbag, something fell out. Willow couldn't remember putting anything like it in her bag.
Frowning with concern, she tossed the bag away on the floor and stepped closer to get a better look at whatever it was. Patting the cover down, Willow suddenly flinched back as if she had been burned when she realized what it was.
"Oh.oh boy," she mumbled, frightened.
Gathering her courage, and swallowing her fear followed by a large gulp, Willow got closer still and reached out her hand to touch the golden coin. When she touched it, the coin flashed with a rainbow of colors before settling on a solid and steady blue glow. She snatched her hand away. Willow froze for half a minute, just staring, and then finished what she started and tried to pick up the coin. She did. Nothing changed.
She didn't feel any different and the coin was still glowing.
Willow began to examine it with interest.
According to her Halloween chaos-induced memories there should have been a relief of some kind of an animal on one side. This side was a single jagged lightning bolt, which resembled the original logo from the TV show. Taking a deep breath, Willow turned the coin over. She blinked in shock. A beautiful relief of a very powerful looking unicorn stared back up at her. After another minute, the blue glow slowly faded, but the coin and the unicorn relief remained.
Gulping to keep the bile she felt rising down, Willow turned to the phone and muttered to herself, "Gotta call Giles!"
Music was pounding; enough to actually rattle the glass in the windows of the Library. Certainly enough to make Rupert Giles, once known as "Ripper", cringe and cover his ears at the pounding noise. Other than his Slayer, as required for calisthenics training, also in attendance and stepping to the beat were Cordelia Chase, Xander Harris, and Daniel "Oz" Osborne.
Oz was sweating lightly but overall he was his usual unflappable self. The other three however were having a fun time of it, even more so because of the look on Giles' face.
"Turn up the music!" Cordy shouted, barely heard of the already booming boom box. Buffy just grinned and nodded her agreement.
Giles tried to say something to the opposition, but he could barely hear himself think, let alone the off chance that someone would hear his voice. Giles noticed one of the lights begin flashing on the multi-line telephone. He reached over and turned off the music.
There was a chorus of protest.
All of a sudden Buffy stopped moving. She sensed something, but what she couldn't quite tell. She just stood there stock still for another moment, and then her highly attuned Slayer ears picked up a sound that was not the boom box or one of the others.
"Hey!" Cordy whined with the loss of tunes, but stopped all complaint when they noticed the look on the Slayer's face. Half a second later, they too heard the pounding on the back door of the Library.
"Giles, get that," Buffy ordered, "We'll check out the back. Xander!" Xander tossed Buffy a short sword from the weapons locker and tossed Oz another sword. Cordelia he gave a pair of sais and a light crossbow, and he took a sword and crossbow for himself. They raced to the back of the stacks.
Giles picked up the phone. "Hello?"
"Giles, this is Willow. I just found something freaky. I don't think it's dangerous, but we definitely need to look at it."
"What is it?"
"You know our Power Coins?"
"I don't believe that I do."
"Oh, yeah. I forgot you hadn't seen the show. Well, the Power Rangers on TV have these coins that hold their power. On Halloween, Xander gave us these coins that he'd found, so that the kids wouldn't bother us about our costumes. I just found mine. It looks just like my Ranger memories say it should."
"And they didn't look that way before?"
"No, when Xander gave them to us, they were totally blank. And it glowed, Giles. Just for a minute or so, but it glowed."
"Oh, dear. Yes, bring it over immediately. But be careful, Buffy and the others just rushed out of here with weapons drawn."
"OK, I'll get my weapons and be right over. Call me on my cell if anything happens before I get there."
There was a click as Willow hung up her phone.
Giles thought about it for several minutes then decided that if it concerned "Ranger" business that he had better call in Amy as well. Besides Amy might be needed as well for the business out back.
He picked up the phone and began to dial.