DTLS Works are PG-13  - The images they invoke         are all in your mind.

..  The Works of Dawn the Last Slayer (DTLS) The immortal Key-born Slayer

"Dawn the Last Slayer"  -   Part 3 of 3

.....Continued from Part 2.......

- Previous Narrative Work: "Buffy & Glory - Beyond the Portal" # 1
- Next Narrative Work: "Dawn - Three Days in Roswell"-  # 3
- Primary Focus: Dawn the Last Slayer
                             Curupira/Tess
                             Clare/Glory, Pat
                             Anya, Xander, Giles, Willow, Tara, Spike
                             Glory, Buffy, Ben Hall
                             Doc
                             Woman on the Tower
- Primary Locations: Sunnydale:
                                 Portal tower warehouse
                                 hospital
                                 Magic shop
                                 Buffy's grave/cemetery
                                 Summers' house
                                 Glory's apartment
- Initial Date/Time: 5/22/01, dawn

[Source:  "Dawn the Last Slayer, Parts 1,2,3 " are transcribed from
                   copies of  pp. 233-245, 250-288 of DTLS Notebook-B.]

....Continued from Part 2.......
Copyright © 2001 gloryisagod.com/DS/G(G)
Curupira was patrolling early in the morning in the beginning part of fall, after an unusually cool
summer in Sunnydale.

Vampire and demon activity was lower than ever in Sunnydale. They were either all dead, in fearful
hiding or or going someplace else, Spike had reported.

After almost 5 months of the immortal new Slayer, her green demon companion and often,
even the inexplicably still here and now pregnant god Glory, relentlessly hunting them down
- this was the state they were in.

Knowing no limits, the three entered previously never raided underground lairs, leaving all fearing
they'd never see the next dawn -a gallows humor pun on the new Slayer's name that was
current, Spike said-  or night.

The three were called the Avenging Angels by the dwindling underbelly of Sunnydale that was still
unslain.

Some even held rituals to try to bring the original Slayer, Buffy, back to displace her merciless sister
and her death-dealing cohorts. They knew Dawn was determined to prove that she was the best Slayer
of all and no longer the helpless little sister - to make Buffy proud of her.
Copyright © 2001 gloryisagod.com/DS/G(G)
"Some even held rituals to try to bring the original  Slayer,
  Buffy, back to displace her merciless sister...They were
  frequently conducting these rituals at Buffy's grave..."Co

Copyright © 2001 gloryisagod.com/DS/G(G)
The problem was they all had to die to for this to happen.

They were frequently conducting these rituals at Buffy's grave and probably would have stolen her
body as a sacred relic were it not for the multiple warding and barrier spells cast around the grave site
by Willow, Curupira and Glory.

Flitting about the cemetery almost invisibly at blurry superspeed, Curupira finally determined that no one
was coming into the area near Buffy's grave now. Their communications had improved enormously since
the arrival of Clare and Pat, with Glory Hall's seemingly no limits charge cards freely available.  All had the
latest cell phones with text, paging and net capability.

This allowed them all to be contacted at once by any of the others.

Lazily, Curupira let her agile mind drift back over the happiest time in her extremely long, but boring,
immortal life. She was thinking as Curupira now, letting her Tess persona float separately for the moment,
while she was in her own form. To a slightly lesser extent, Tess could do the same when in her form.

Usually they melded their personas together and simply chose the best morphed form for the task at
hand.
Copyright © 2001 gloryisagod.com/D
She learned new things every day, grateful for Tess' more worldly outlook from all her travels with
Nasedo. She worked with Pat a lot. Having been around Glory for sometime before the portal event
and never fully explaining how or why, he seemed to have a natural ability to suggest new, unexpected
ways for her and Tess to use their merged powers.

He was the first to persuade her that she was awfully close to the local Glory's powers in many ways.

Of course she was also desperately in love with him and had been for much longer than any of the others,
except Tess, could possibly have known. They had shared dreams for almost a year as she lay imprisoned
by magic under a lake, the lake of her mortal demon enemy. That was when she had no true understanding
of her ultimate powers and simply believed she was a mere forest demon with a few special powers.

Now that she had met the woman on the tower back in the summer, Curupira had begun to suspect that
she was somehow involved. It was quite curious that her own imprisonment had ended about the time the
Key was made human, as best she could deduce. Her release was via her shared dreams as she lay in a
receptive trance beneath the waters.

He had convinced her that they were more than dreams, that he was real and far away.

As their nightly dreams got more vivid and real with repetition, it was almost as if they were sitting in her
little cave, the one she went home to each night, and had for as long as she could remember. They talked
and she learned his language with her magic. Learned of him, he of her. He could help her, he believed,
by showing her she was a victim of her belief that her enemy was more powerful than she was.

He had opened her eyes and her mind slowly and gradually to a broader reality than she could ever
have imagined.
Copyright © 2001 gloryisagod.com/DS/G(G)
Then came the day she simply broke the magic chains holding her to the bottom of the lake, swam to the
top, as no forest demon should be able to do, and tore her demon nemesis to tiny pieces before feeding
her to several of her tigers.

Their thoughts, such as they were as they gnawed the bones, seemed to dwell on 'stringy, but filling'.

No longer satisfied with her backward world, Curupira had searched for a way to find her dream sharer.

In her little cave that night, she had her first shared dream not imprisoned. His dream image said, "I have
a 'friend' who has somehow left something for you in the back of your cave, along with a spell that can
be used but once. If you use it it'll bring both of us together in a magical dimension where you are
needed to perform some deeds that only you're capable of."

That, Curupira remembered vividly, was her one-way ticket to Buffy-world.

At least the first Buffy-world.

The one where Tess was already there with the bound god Glory. Things had gotten complicated since
then, but she had those many months with him, learning why she had the puzzling physical attributes
of the women she'd encountered, but being an immortal demon, had never found any obvious use
for them, until now.

There was that one difference that so annoyed Glory, though, when she mentioned it once. "That
shouldn't be possible," she'd looked at Curupira as if she were ... well... strange. But she never
forgot to taunt her about it at every possibility.

If only she and Tess had not merged at the portal opening. It was difficult for her to maintain a
full relationship with him while she and Tess were so intertwined in their bi-modal body. They had
managed to keep their personalities separate when needed, but combined as necessary. Still
it required considerable magic to maintain.

The additional frustration of the whole baby thing with Glory/Clare and him was alleviated somewhat
by the initial obstacles to real bonding between any of the three, even Glory and Clare. It seemed
to be a case of mutual benefit and duty in exchange for immortality, magic and a new body for
Glory, plus the promise that her sister wasn't dead, just missing until they found her.

In that sense the three never disagreed. On other things, well...Curupira smiled, she did
what she could.

It was hard to concentrate when you knew that your other self, Tess, was enamored with both the
concept and the reality of Glory. Curupira saw very little future in that, but Tess was persistent,
perhaps because of prior relationship disappointments, and seemed to be winning the ambivalent,
and normally almost asexual, Glory over as time went on.
Copyright © 2001 gloryisagod.com/D
Mostly, Curupira had observed,  because of Glory's participation in the procreation and well-being
of the baby and the extreme novelty of being pregnant when she morphed into her form from Clare's.

'Enough', she felt her Tess self complaining and they merged personalities again.

Concurring silently, she...they...left that topic for a less controversial thought or two.

Anyway, Curupira rolled over onto her side in the large tree, so she could see between the branches
better, Dawn had become so obviously the complete Slayer in her interface between the old Buffy
gang and  the new immortal gang that it seemed she'd always been the Slayer.
Copyright © 2001 gloryisagod.com/DS/G(G)
"...Curupira rolled over onto her
side in the large tree..."

Copyright © 2001 gloryisagod.com/DS/G(G)
Since Giles was less and less an influence, he had been spending longer and longer periods away
back in England - on higher level Watcher business, so he said.

Spike, with the need for his strength diminishing every day, had become more of a Magic shop
'hangingaround' sort than anything these days - telling the latest rumors on the streets. He really
needed Buffy, and Dawn could not only take care of herself, he knew she could take him and
Buffy at once, with little effort, he guessed.

Anya and Xander were getting use to being engaged and thoughts of family surfaced often.

Willow and Anya continued their relationship where it had left off after the other Glory had
sucked her brain out. "I like having my brain back, "she had said more than once in the early
days after the portal events. "Now I need to use it for a really good purpose."

So these thoughts drifted through Curupira's head. Things she'd never have experienced on her
world. It was curious to think how she was here almost by accident. Had she not been bested
and imprisoned underwater, she'd not have slipped into the nothingness of her trance.

No trance, no shared dreams, and so on...

From here on the hill, up in the tree overlooking the cemetery, she could still see the top of the
tower in the distance. It was pretty much intact due to her massive warding and forget-me spells,
added to later by Glory.
Copyright © 2001 gloryisagod.com/DS/G(G)
Curupira liked the treey cemetery, so quiet in the early morning after a lone patrol. It brought back
almost forgotten memories of running through the endless forests of her world. It seemed like a
timeless dream compared to her present one. In fact, she told herself, why was she running through
the forest all the time? There was no place to really go. It now seemed pointless...

Loud voices talking normally, women or girls.

That was unusual. Visitors normally came later in the morning or in the late afternoon after work.
They didn't sound like trouble. They were walking arm-in-arm. One was slightly taller than the other
and wore what looked like a cutoff T-shirt, shorts and high-heels. Her hair was in a ball cap and
streaming out the opening at the back of the fit-all cap, she saw.

The other was dressed in a maroon and gold cheerleader outfit that struck her Tess memories
as beyond way retro. She was also wearing some sort of brimmed hat with no hair showing. Looked
like a mother and her private school teen daughter out visiting granddad's grave, Curupira decided
and  relaxed.

Both were talking animatedly and then got nearer and nearer to Buffy's secluded grave as they
veered off the pathway.

Surely they couldn't be vampires, not in the daylight. Demons would have been skulking anyway,
These two were making noise and talking up a storm about the cemetery and the graves as they
passed them.

They stopped at Buffy's grave.
Copyright © 2001 gloryisagod.com/DS/G(G)
The teen read the inscription aloud from near the foot of the grave:

           BUFFY ANNE SUMMERS

                   1981-2001

              BELOVED SISTER
              DEVOTED FRIEND

          SHE SAVED THE WORLD
                      A LOT

 Curupira had no trouble hearing this.

She watched fascinated as the teen began crying and fell to the ground in a heap. "Oh, Dawn,
Dawn, Dawn," she cried piteously. Curupira went on alert at this word. Not sure what was
going on. Certainly they seemed no threat.

The mother knelt beside the weeper and confronted her, wiping the tears from her eyes.

She was even more puzzled when they began kissing one another tentatively then more
than tentative. It reminded her of what Dawn had said she saw Glory and Tess doing once,
or Willow and Tara.

From somewhere she floated a Tess memory to the surface that confirmed this was a recurring thing
when Tess was morphed in and her other self was floating separately. The words, "It's not a secret,
just ask yourself" came wrapped in the memory. She sighed, 'Oh to have a body and mind to myself
again.' 'Yeah,' was the heartfelt reply.

After this little internal memory dialogue was over, Curupira saw that the crier was now not crying,
but watching as the taller one stepped alongside the grave to the tombstone and seemed to be
writing on it.

But this was impossible, since it was spelled and warded.

The the two walked away down the path to the gate. They were leaning on one another, but not
talking anymore. She watched until they disappeared down the street. With that she fell back to
daydreaming again.

Her cell phone vibrated, She retrieved it from an interior pocket between her breasts, about the only
place she could keep it so it didn't create a bulge. It was warm to her touch. "Wake up, sleepyhead,"
Willow was greeting her as she held it in out in front of her face.

This bothered some, but with her senses, she didn't have to hold it to her ear.
Copyright © 2001 gloryisagod.com/DS/G(G)
Willow had gotten used to Curupira over the months as she slayed endlessly with Dawn. "Proof's
in the doing," she had finally said cheerfully. "You're good for Dawn, 'nuf for me."

Curupira told her about the couple she'd  seen at Buffy's grave and what they'd done. How one had
tried to write on the tombstone. "Maybe Dawn and Buffy have groupies in addition to the ritual
worshipers of 'Buffy-Please-Return' ?"  In the process of talking, she'd slipped out of the tree and
ran slowly over to Buffy's grave."

"What ?" she said aloud, "There's something on the tombstone that wasn't here earlier this
morning."

"What ?" Willow echoed.

"Well, " Curupira slowly said," You're not going to believe it. Somehow the taller of the two girls
was able to write on the tombstone..."

"But with the wards and spells, it should wipe off easily, only surface..."

"It's not a marker. It's a small finger width deep and inserted to the side of the dates between the
top word "BUFFY" and the "BELOVED" line and on the stone," Curupira touched a long green nail
to one of the two letters and then traced out the freehand curved figure.

"This was done with a finger and not a fingernail like I used for the original carving. You can even
see finger impressions as if the finger was hot and melting the stone some," she added.

"That'd take real power to do and only after punching through the barriers..." Willow had no trouble
conjuring up someone who could punch through magical barriers as if they were mere spider webs -
"Glory's back!  Watch out!" she said abruptly.

Curupira did a superspeed 360, briefly breaking the sound barrier with a muted bang, and told
Willow, "Nothing."

"And," she continued, "There's no guesswork involved. But why would Glory write both her initial
and Buffy's inside a heart? Weren't they mortal enemies?"
Copyright © 2001 gloryisagod.com/DS/G(G)
"But why would Glory write both her
initial and Buffy's inside a heart?
Weren't they mortal enemies?"

Copyright © 2001 gloryisagod.com/DS/G(G)
Willow had a passing thought, then dismissed it as impossible. Not Buffy and Glory. "Must be
Glory playing a game with us, " she decided. "Tell me exactly what happened."

Curupira did. Including the smaller girl saying Dawn's name girl and fainting. "But I'm not detecting
god presence or a Slayer presence. Could Glory be so powerful she could completely cloak her
godly self and another?" Uneasily, she remembered the obvious such super cloaking the
woman on the tower had apparently employed.

Was Glory really that powerful now also?

But she could not tell that to Willow.

Soon some of the others Willow had alerted came with her and followed Curupira back to Buffy's
grave. Glory morphed in from Clare. She stepped over and ran her left little finger in the grooves
of the heart and the lettering. Everyone noticed it was a perfect fit. down to the shape of her carefully
shortened, slightly rounded black fingernail.

"If she came through the original or another similar portal without the Key, " Glory said wryly. "I'm
no match for her. She'll be in full god body and all that entails powerwise."

Dawn was watching all this and was torn between believing Buffy was back and the improbable
things Curupira had been telling them. She bored a hole through the B G heart with her
gray eyes.

"Buffy and Glory...it just can't be," she kept repeating to any of the others who came over to
touch her in sympathy.

"You know, " Anya said insightfully. "If they are really as you say, wouldn't that mean that they
had made up in someway and maybe Glory's changed for the better - like our mother-to-be
Glory?"

Glory was skeptical. "I was always careful and not so rash. It's almost as if we're two parts of the
same person, the opposite parts, " she mused aloud about this continuing mystery. "I remember
having my powers and anticipating even more as I grew in my magics. A real god in her body like
Glory will be will have inconceivable powers. You've only see me and her trapped in others' bodies."

"That's a tiny glimmer, mostly physical and a little magic, but that's nothing. I was myself on the
verge of opening up the door to magics no god before had ever dreamed of." Her eyes grew
misty, " I was tricked out of that advance and I'll do almost anything to attain it...almost
anything..." she repeated.

A pensive Dawn agreed, "Something else bigger is going on. We're being given data, but have no
theories. Something...reality... has shifted and we don't know where or why  because we are inside
it, " she let her Slayer instincts guide her. "All we can do it keep on moving."

"Glory probably  doesn't know about some of us, " Clare morphed in and continued Glory's
participation without a lost beat. "Or the baby," she lifted her maternity top slightly and cupped
her spread fingers on her, and Glory's, now visibly obvious swelling. They'd already been
wearing chic maternity clothes for awhile now.

With nothing else to do here, they wandered back in a group to the Magic shop. There was very
little talking.

Willow had already missed one class, but she couldn't leave now.  Xander was off working.

Anya began preparing for the morning opening of the shop when Spike came in from the back
alley with the black umbrella Dawn had given him so long ago. "Guess what ? I just saw Glory
driving here in a brand new car, I believe, as I came up from below in the alley..."

...His jaw dropped to the floor as he espied Clare talking to Tess over in the front aisle past the
window and realized who he really had seen...THE Glory...

He was shaking as Anya quickly filled him in. He refused to believe it. He didn't want to believe
it.
Copyright © 2001 gloryisagod.com/DS/G(G)
The bell on the door tinkled at that precise moment.

A smiling Ben stepped through the door.

"Better late than never," he said. "See, no more Glory," he was walking down the steps to an
amazed Dawn. "I apologize for what we did. It was the way Buffy and Glory wanted to play
it. For you, they said."

"I paid for it," he kept talking, "Glory left my soul stuck to my body for all this time until today
when resurrection and immortality arrived. It was a taste of what it must've been like for her
those first 15 or so years in me - before she first learned to morph out at night."

"Ah," he turned as the bell sounded again, "Here come Buffy and Glory. " Ben turned and did
a dramatic sweeping courtier bow toward the pair as they entered the shop. "Glorificus, the
Merciful. Glory the Keeper of Agreements. Glory Hall, my 'FORMER' sister,"  he emphasized,
loudly.

Both Glory and Buffy, holding hands, wore radiant smiles. "Immortality makes one giddy, right
sweetie?"  Glory said to Buffy in a clear, cheerful voice.

"I should know," Buffy laughed. "And it makes you happy, too. Congratulations, Ben!"

Spike could see past the three new arrivals to Clare and Tess back near the corner. They were
watching, while pretending to look at some artifacts like customers. For the first time he was
actually glad they were here, at least their morphed other selves would be a surprise to
Glory.

Though Glory was acting more like the less aggressive pregnant Glory, for now anyway.

Glory and Buffy, never looking back, came down the steps, past Ben and up to Dawn.

Dawn was controlling her mixed emotions by looking a bit stoic and unsmiling. "Are you
really Buffy?" Dawn began to loose her somewhat aloof air at seeing Buffy up close.

"In the flesh, immortal that is, courtesy of my Glory here," she squeezed Glory's left hand.
" 'course, it's a body that came with the portal, but full of good old Summers' blood,"
she added.

Clare cleared her voice loudly.

Tess idly sat down the object she was holding. She was watching Glory in a combination
of fascination and latent fear. Both Glorys were identical in physical appearance, except
for the baby, of course.

Briefly distracted from Dawn, Buffy turned, "Who are you?" she asked, astonished by the
blonde's Glory features. She immediately noted that the girl, woman, was pregnant.

"I'm Clare," she answered, "from one of the merging dimensions that the portal openings
engendered. Welcome home, kiddies. Fun trip?" she laughed softly, not being able to resist
the scene she was watching. Seeing them holding hands explained lots of things rather
quickly.

"I was there in the adjacent warehouse when both of you left, y'know?" she rolled the
bomb out into the open to see what happened. Her Glory self was patiently letting her
prime the pump to see what would happen.

Buffy turned again to Dawn, "What's she talking about, Dawnie?"

"it's about time! My time! My lost time!" Dawn's voice was a mixture of hurt and anger.

"You lied to me on the tower and just why did you wait 5 months to come back to me?
Do you know what I've done in your place? I've done the job you were supposed to do!"

"I'm a killer like you, Buffy. Your little 'Dawnie' has the blood of thousands on these hands!"
She held out her hands, palms up.
Copyright © 2001 gloryisagod.com/D
"I'm a killer like you, Buffy. Your little 'Dawnie'
 has the  blood of thousands on these hands!"
 She held out her hands, palms up.

And simply stared at Buffy with her big teary wet eyes.
Copyright © 2001 gloryisagod.com/D
"They call me the "Dawn the Avenging Angel". They also call me 'Dawn Without Mercy"
and have sayings like "Dawn And We're Not." They have a cult that meets at your grave
site to perform rituals to try to bring you back so that you'll take the Slayership from me,
that they might live for another day!"

"I'm an object of hatred and dreaded fear! Me, Dawn, your little fake sister!"

Dawn's voice was now loud and mournful, as only she could do when at wits end.

"I've slain dragons, demons, vampires, nightmare things. I've gone to Europe and then
to Asia and exterminated without regret all the armies of those fanatic idiots, the Knights
of Byzantium!"

"I'm a legendary killer and not even 16 yet! Not even 16!"

"All my little real girlhood life has vanished in these 5 months!"

"But I didn't give up, I did my job. I did it good, real good. Better than you ever did!"

"I'm become the Key-born 'Dawn the Last Slayer'!. I was made a killer by your lies and deceit,
Buffy Anne Summers!"  she dropped her hands to her side and simply stood there with a hurt
expression on her small face, tears of anger, and more, running down her cheeks.

"...Bitch...!" she added in an afterthought.

Glory looked around suspiciously, her eyes narrowing, "Something's going on here that I
don't understand." She released her grip of Buffy's hand, reached out and pushed Buffy
slightly behind her as she tried to decide who to face, having just seen her lookalike
Clare smiling back at her from across the room. It was like looking into a mirror, except she
was blonde and bulging like she was...

"...I'll kill you, you and...all of you if you come near Buffy," she said ominously, raising her
right hand in what five of them recognized as a prelude to some sort of magic dispensing.
Her threatening voice cut the air like a chain saw.

"Oh, God, it's true, Buffy," Dawn wailed, "You did make a bargain with Glory, like we
were sure you did, and now you've sold your soul to her!"

She turned to the counter and began sobbing as she bent over onto it, supporting herself
with her arms. Her face was hidden by her long brown hair.

"Dawn...it's not that simple": Buffy moved around Glory, who was beginning to worry about
the tenor of what should have been a happy homecoming reunion...
Copyright © 2001 gloryisagod.com/D
Tess made a snap decision and flash morphed, jumping to a blur in one step.

"Glory...look out!" Ben suddenly called out loudly from behind Buffy and Glory.
"Shape shifter!"

A petite blur of green and blonde essentially appeared from nowhere between Dawn and
Buffy.

Buffy staggered from the blast of wind and the muffled, but distinct, double sonic boom
as Curupira exceeded and then dropped back below the speed of sound. She didn't bother
to magically damp it out at all on the side away from Dawn. Many objects in that part of the
room, in front and above her broke from the over pressure of the shock wave.

She wanted Glory to be alarmed, very alarmed at the spectacular effect she'd been
practicing.

Buffy recovered and jumped back with greater than Slayer agility. Spike retreated to a safe
distance behind Willow and Tara. Anya had vanished to the floor behind the counter as
Glory had raised her hand originally. No fool she. 'Not twice, anyway', she thought, making
love to the floor, becoming one with it. She sighed at the sound of breaking glass from
parts of the room.

Then she remembered the insurance and relaxed.
Copyright © 2001 gloryisagod.com/D
Clare looked antsy, ready to morph Glory in and follow Tess any second now. Only the baby
held them back, hesitating.

Glory expelled her breath in one of her famous machine gun word streams, "What the fricking
hell are you, blondie, some sorta party treat? Look at that hair..."

Curupira raised her hands and green nails in front of her and spoke just as rapidly, "Back off !
Back off!! Or I'll tear both of you to shreds!"

"Wow, it talks tough for being so tiny," Glory mocked, "and so green," she added. "I think I'll
freeze you and use you as a garden troll."  She started to speak a spell and drop her still raised
right arm...

Dawn turned and screamed so loud and so long that it hurt even Glory's supposedly protected
ears. And could she scream loud nowadays. "STOOOOOPIIIiiiiiiiiiT..." until they were aware of
only her.

Clare was starting morphing, then they decided to wait, but she edged closer to that part of the
room where Glory and Buffy were.

"If you're really Buffy!" Dawn was still screaming at the top of her voice. "You'll stop looking like
you or Glory are threatening me or my friend Curupira here will hurt you! If either of you hurt her,
I'll try to hurt you in turn, including you, Buffy!"

Taken aback, Buffy and Glory also back-pedaled farther away from Curupira, who morphed
into the less threatening Tess and began wiping Dawn's still flowing tears away with her
bare hands.

Glory and Buffy watched this touching scene with wide eyes.

Suddenly, it seemed catching. Both remembered Buffy crying at her graveside for Dawn.
They exchanged a look, started to say something, saw the tears forming in each others eyes
and shut their mouths for a change.

"That's better," Dawn gently took Tess' wet hands from her face so she could talk better.
"Now nobody talk until I tell you to..."
Copyright © 2001 gloryisagod.com/D
Spike, sensing that the real danger was past, ignored this and cheered, "That's telling 'em,
Slayer!"

"Shut Up, Spike. Kill him, Tess." Dawn never even looked his way, but Tess immediately
morphed to Curupira and was half way toward the terrified vampire before Dawn quickly
seemed to change her mind.
Copyright © 2001 gloryisagod.com/D
"Stop it, Curupira!" she ordered. The green girl was still moving, but looked around
questioningly, her ball of hair sweeping to one side, trying to decide what Dawn wanted.

Dawn blurred and was across the floor to Curupira, holding her arm and looking her directly
in the eyes. "I'm the Slayer. If I ask her to kill, she will, no questions asked," she said loudly
to Buffy and Glory, while still looking at Curupira. She winked one eye at the green girl
who smiled with relief, as did Anya, Spike and Tara, who could see the wink, too.

This little lesson impressed Glory and Buffy as much as her speech about her lost time and
her probably inflated Slayer feats. Dawn could command someone close to her to death
and rescind that order without hesitation. They looked at one another in a measure of
understanding that Dawn was the Slayer in more than words.

Glory gazed at the slender girl with a new eye. She had power, some magics, some
improbable, but she had another rare power, leadership.
Copyright © 2001 gloryisagod.com/D
Buffy was still trying to see Dawn as she had become, not as she remembered her.

Dawn seemed to have calmed down, but she obviously wanted to say something more.

"As I said, I'm the Slayer here in Sunnydale. I've killed more horrors, alone and with a few
others, than you did Buffy, since your first day as a Slayer. If death was your gift, you willed
it to me. I've given this gift tenfold, maybe several thousand fold." Dawn spoke rather
sternly as she now looked only at Buffy from in front of Curupira.

"Your deal with Glory left us to our fates here. How the f...... hell," Dawn rarely used
4-letter words, this time she used the real F-word in its gerund form, "did you expect us
to react?"

Dawn stepped the five paces separating her from Buffy and slapped Buffy in the face
so hard she knocked her sideways into Glory!

Not stopping, she also slapped the stunned Glory in the face for good measure!

Both were surprised that they felt it. "That hurt," Glory marveled, holding the left
side of her face, which was turning red with Dawn's hand print on it.

Buffy's jaw was broken.

As Glory held Buffy up, everyone could hear bones snapping into place as
her immortal body repaired the damage in seconds.

"Pretty strong these days, ain't she?" Spike declared in a hollow, rasping voice. He didn't
like seeing Buffy hurt, but the look on Glory's face was precious to someone she'd
once tortured.

After exercising her healed jaw for a moment, Buffy looked at Glory to make sure she
hadn't gone into fighting mode again. Glory was still watching Dawn with utter amazement,
remembering when she'd slung her around like a doll several times the night of the portal
opening.

Buffy then proceeded to tell them a sanitized overview of what had happened to her and
Glory after both dove through the portal as their magic charade culminated. "Willow
almost cost me everything by forcing Spike to go up on the tower before me. His sacrifice
there has not been forgotten. He was a part of the deception from the beginning," she
paused.

[Ed.: See "Buffy & Glory, Beyond the Portal" for Dawn's narrative of what Buffy, and
         later Glory, told them/her.]

"Some of this you obviously have discovered. Glory and I, and now you, are killers by
nature. There're rarely any consequences. Glory and I had hated one another, but
we discovered we were too much alike.

"We deserved one another. We became real people to one another, not the facades
we had built up of each another since we first met and fought in the warehouse. She
was the Beast, now she's Glory. I was the Slayer, now I'm Buffy." With that, Buffy
hugged Glory and they kissed briefly.

Tara and Willow clapped slowly until everyone, including Dawn had joined in. Buffy
disentangled herself and turned to Dawn. They hugged and kissed one another on the
neck and cheeks and sisterly on the mouth, until it seemed they'd run out of places to
do so.

The clapping had started up again and continued.
Copyright © 2001 gloryisagod.com/D
Anya eventually blurted out, "My hands are tired," but she kept on clapping slowly
anyway.

Dawn, her arm about Buffy's waist, said it all, "I may not ever understand why things
happened the way they did, but I'm able to say 'Welcome back, Buffy, Glory, Ben.'"

Reaching out, Dawn motioned for Curupira and Clare to come closer.

"Counter," she told Curupira. The little green girl flowed up on to the counter where
she could be more easily seen. "My name is Curupira. I'm also merged with Tess
because of the portal openings. This dimension merged with a similar one, but not
the one I'm from."

"Long story," she threw up her hands and morphed to Tess and back again. "I gave
Dawn powers, magic and immortality so that the Key would be the Last Slayer."

"Now Clare over there...why don't you hop up here?"

She took one of Clare's hands and, though pregnant, she agilely joined Curupira.
"Looks like Glory, just like I look like Tess. Similar dimensions. Except there was no
Glory or Buffy here to merge with, both being gone..."

Curupira left out the part about what the other Buffy had done.

[Ed- What the other Buffy did is in the earlier work "Dawn the Last Slayer" - Part 2 of 3]

"There are a couple of us missing. Giles is in England.  Xander is working and Pat
is...somewhere." Xander and Anya are engaged. Pat is 'sort of' the father of the baby
here..." She patted Clare on her tummy. The third parent, "sort of", is the other
dimension's Glory."

[Ed- What  Glory actually did is in  the earlier work  "Dawn the Last Slayer" - Part 2 of 3]

Buffy and Glory looked blank as their minds registered what she said, but refused to
accept it. "Um, Glory, third parent ?" Glory echoed.

"Say hello, Glory," Curupira was watching the standing Glory's face for reaction.

Clare morphed to Glory.

Less than  five feet apart, the two stared at one another. "Looks like me," the
standing Glory finally stated in apparent bafflement. She sniffed in a bobbing motion.
"God like me, but still bound... and impossibly pregnant."

Skeptically, Glory raised the maternity top on the pregnant Glory sitting on the counter
with Curupira. "See," she poked her taut belly, for she was carrying high, "No navel!"

Skeptically, Glory raised the maternity top on the pregnant Glory sitting
on the counter with Curupira. "See," she poked her taut belly, for she
was carrying high, "No navel!"

Copyright © 2001 gloryisagod.com/D
"Gods aren't born, they're made!"

With that she pulled up her own brand new expensive red blouse and showed that she
had no navel either. It was something that Buffy, and the few more intimate with the
other Glory, knew about. "Shape shift..." Glory told the other Glory. She did and Clare had
a normal looking innie navel going outtie. She morphed back.

Curupira morphed the center of her magic costume off to expose her midriff.
Copyright © 2001 gloryisagod.com/D
She had no navel either.

"Both Glory's poked at her with black nailed fingers. "Interesting, "They said
simultaneously. They took turns sniffing her, with puzzled expressions on their
faces. "God, yet not god," the two agreed in a few quick words. "You're a wonder,"
one Glory said eventually.

"So I've been told," Curupira laughed at the memory of the woman on the tower. She
now knew who she was. She had even been invited over for a visit once already.
She wondered if she had no navel either.

The standing Glory spread both hands and placed them on Glory's belly.

"Girl," she said approvingly. "This is going to take time, honey," she told the pregnant
Glory. "I'm not sure how you managed the body switch or the 3-way conception,
but that's a god-girl with magic growing in there."

"At least when she can accept the full powers."

"If I'd gotten through the portal first," the other Glory asked, "What would you have done,
had you known of me?"

Glory laughed lightly, "What makes you think I didn't, 'Sis'?" she looked at Buffy and they
both shrugged theatrically.

Curupira and the pregnant Glory's eyes narrowed in suspicion, before dismissing the
question as a bluff. "You're kidding, right?" Curupira asked.

"Oh, Yeah," Glory agreed readily and amicably.

On this curious note, the group began to break up, Ben left with the new car Glory
had bought for him, counted his more than adequate funds and headed off to parts
unknown. The next time they heard of him he was on staff in a Seattle hospital and
quite happy, as new  immortals are wont to be.

Clare and Tess headed off for a leisurely lunch and some shopping, Dawn,
Willow and Tara had classes to go to and missed classes to catch up on.
Buffy and Glory walked to the Summers house where they intended to stay for
awhile.
Copyright © 2001 gloryisagod.com/D
Anya and Spike stood there below the steps and watched everyone leave. She
surveyed the broken items and looked at Spike.

"I'll give you a hand cleaning up," he offered. "Guess what I heard today...?"
he began as he followed her to the cleaning closet.

And so it ended with dustpans and brooms.
And meaningless small talk.

A most remarkable event in Sunnydale.
The return of Glory and Buffy.
The impending birth of a god with a navel.
The old Slayer acknowledging her successor.

But Anya knew that it was only the beginning.
Nothing would ever be the same again.
Copyright © 2001 gloryisagod.com/D

NOTE: Road trip to Roswell in the next work:
           #3 "Dawn - Three Days in Roswell"
 
 

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All things identified as being from the 'Buffy-is-real' dimension are derived from the original works of Dawn the Last Slayer, not the fictional Buffy character: These are Copyright © 2001 gloryisagod.com/DS/G(G)

Glory (Gloriana)  Gloryisagod.com  -end-

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