Swan Song

I decided on the title for this latest installment we played for three reasons. First, this is the end of our Buffy cycle. Consider it a mid-season break. Next weekend we hit Exalted and we'll be playing that and other games for a while. Not sure when we'll get back to Buffy, but it always comes around again eventually, and I think that's a testament to how much we like the game. Secondly, this episode was Ember's swan song. It was her first international performance...and her last performance (we think). And lastly, this installment also marked a bit of a change in Sascha's non-slayer life...and Sascha certainly does consider herself to be the ugly duckling, so it seemed to fit well.

When we last left the gang, they were watching Cameron try to get his resurrection machine working in his basement. It didn't take long for Cam to realize he wasn't going to be able to get this working before the concert, so Opal and Sascha took off towards the concert (with a quick stopoff for Sascha to change). Opal's job was to find the TV van and figure out some way to mess with the feed if need be (Sascha didn't entirely trust Anzo to pull the feed if things got out of hand), while Sascha was going to go inside and mingle for a bit, then take the front-row seat Anzo bought her and be ready to ruin the concert (and probably any social life she had in the process.

Inside the concert, Anzo found Sascha and they were talking when a tall man in a suit with a bushy grey moustache and a military crew cut showed up and shook Anzo's hand. He appeared to have been a onetime mentor of Anzo's. As the hands shook Sascha looked over...just in time to see a blue ring on his hand with a red bull on it. The exact ring that was on the hand of the man who killed Ember.

After a tense exchange, the man left and she told Anzo who he was and he said he'd have the man looked into (though he didn't seem to entirely believe her). He walked Sascha to her seat and went backstage to manage things from there.

Back at Cam's house, he was wracking his new and improved brain over how to get this machine working as quickly as possible when three humvees pulled up in front of his house and a bunch of guys in black with machine guns got out. They broke into the house as Oscar was leaning (okay cowering) in front of the door to the stairs, and Laz was explaining that all he had was some little fog spell ready. Cam worked faster still....

Ember had started the concert. She smiled slightly in Sascha's direction, and Sascha tried to nod reassuringly to let her know we were on the case. But then Ember saw her killer...just sitting there smiling at her. Shaken, she started the concert anyways, and started to build power....

The men were at Cam's basement door, complaining that we had shoved a refridgerator up against it (Oscar was unamused), so they started breaking through the door. They were just about through and Cam was under the machine working frantically when the door blew inward. He saw pieces of wood hitting the floor beside him, followed by the unconscious form of one of the guards. Snow walked in and told Cam to hurry up....

The second set of songs began, the cameras were rolling. Ember shouts "Who do you love??" and the crowd chants her name. And from how she was glowing, there were people all over the world doing the same thing. Her eyes were burning with blue fire when she muttered her response "And you know it.". She pointed the end of her guitar at the man, who was simply sitting in his seat smiling at her. She turned the dial up and raised her hand. Sascha looked at Anzo, who was looking a little less sure of himself, and had the remote out. He hit the button as Sascha picked up her chair. With a prayer, she threw it at Ember and her guitar....

"Are. You. Done. Yet?". Snow's words came from the stairs, as she and Anzo's men performed a decent amount of demolition on the upstairs of Cam's house. "Just a few more seconds!" was his shouted reply. No time to worry about upstairs right now....

Ember fell back as the chair hit her guitar and her. Security guards started pushing their way through towards Sascha, so she jumped up on stage.
"Ember you can't do this!"
"Don't....tell me what to do.... You have no idea the hell I am in...and it's his fault. He deserves this."
"Dammit you're doing what he wants."
"You think I care?"
"I'm not going to let you hurt anybody here...."
"You can't stop me."
"Wanna bet?"

With a smile, Ember gestured and a ring of blue fire sprand up around Sascha. The stage caught fire and everyone in the audience started to run. Everybody but one man, sitting calmly in his seat.

Sascha jumped out of the ring. "You think it would be that easy?"

"What the hell is going on here?" Anzo stepped out between them. He turned towards Sascha and asked what the hell was going on. Sascha's angry reply to him was brought up short by his turning his back to Ember and winking at her. Sascha took the hint and started advancing on him.
"What's going on is that she's freaking out like I told you she was going to!"
"What I saw was you throwing chairs. Do you have any idea how much this is going to cost me?"
"You know what I think of your stupid money???"
"No...what??"
"THIS!"
At the last moment Anzo dived out of the way and Sascha, now close enough to Ember to strike, drop kicked her off of the stage. That was the good news. The bad news was that Ember was on fire when she did it, so Sascha hit the ground rolling and patting out her hair and clothes....

Snow stuck her head into the stairwell again. "If you dont' get that machine working now I'm going to..."
"GOT IT!" Cam made the final connection and hit the switch and the machine hummed to life. Snow nodded and ducked back upstairs. He got up and turned to begin the sequence that would bring Ember back to life, but a heavy weight hit him from behind and sent him sprawling, the air knocked out of him.

One of the security men was standing over him with a billy club. He raised it to strike again, but was hit from behind with a bright light and went flying. Laz stood behind him, his eyes a shadowy black, chanting in a very curt harsh voice. He gestured and a wall of blue energy slammed three more against a back wall. Oscar helped Cam up and he dove for the switches....

Ember was up before Sascha put herself out. A blazing nova of blue fire now, she saw the man get up and begin calmly walking out of the room. She screamed "NO!!" and threw out a hand as Sascha leg swept her. She hit the ground again and rolled to a kneeling position. "You ruined everything!! I'm going to..." She stopped and started glowing even brighter. She screamed and in a flash of light disappeared as everything went dark....

The cage that held Ember's body was glowing with a bright light for a moment and then everything went black as the machine blew out the power grid. Cam started feeling his way towards the cage, shoving something large out of his way and hearing Oscar protest as he was shoved). He got his flashlight from under the machine where he was working and shone it inside the now open cage. All that was there was a puddle of water...the remenants of the frost that was coating Ember's body. "W-where is she?"

Laz groaned as he got up, holding his head. "Man....the dark arts really harsh my mellow". As he saw the empty cage he said "Oh yeah, I probably shoulda told you....the power source my mom gave me for it...it's got some quantum flux thing in it."

Cam's brain opened it's own little science dictionary and Cam realized that if the flux field activated, Ember could be at any time or place in the world. "One good thing though." Laz said in consolation. "If she's gone, that means your machine worked. The field only affects living tissue. And she's somewhere on earth at some point in time, we know that much. So she's got a chance at life."

After a moment of freaking out, Cam realized that at least she had a chance, which was better than what she had. Snow, who came in afterwards didn't agree, and seemed very angry at her absence. When asked why, she said she had a contract that would bind her to Snow's service, even while alive. Cam made the dangerous move of laughing at her about it.
"So you were trying to screw me over."
"I never said I wasn't. But at least I won't leave here completely empty handed."
"Oh yes you are. I'm not going to sign that contract. You were trying to screw me over!"
She stepped closer. "I'd think twice about that if I were you. Your parents are almost home, and there are so many bodies here already....what's two more?"
He stepped closer to her. "This light thing...it only comes around every so many generations, right? So if I die, that's it. And if I live, and you touch my parents.... Well you've seen what I'm capable of. You really want someone who can build anything he puts his mind to that pissed off at you?"
"You're right...I could always kill one and take the other to assure your cooperation..."
"I said anything I put my mind to...."
She paused and looked up at him dangerously. "All right. I'm going to walk away this once. But I will make this offer again, and next time I'm not going to give you the option of saying no."

She turned to leave, then smiled back at him. "Besides....this way you get to explain to your parents why their entire house is now ruined. They just pulled into the driveway. Bye..."

She walked up the stairs, saying goodye to someone, as his parents simultaneously screamed "CAMERON!!!"....

"Is everybody all right in here?" Opal's voice echoed through the Rocket's main room as she came in from outside. "Everybody was running out and....oh."

Sascha's hand came up and waved at her from beside the stage. "Good news." She said as she stood up, her hair and clothes still smoking. "I got through this one without breaking anything."

Opal rushed forward to help her, but was brought up short. Her eyes widened at something behind Sascha. "Sascha....don't.....move....."

Sascha stopped and looked wary. "What?....What?"

Anzo stood up as well and stopped dead beside Opal. Sascha turned very slowly around and saw something that scared her far more than Ember could have....

The TV camera's light was green. It was on and transmitting.

"Here. Catch!" Opal tossed a small object, almost shaped like a stake, but with a rounded end.

Sascha caught the microphone and looked panicked at Opal. "What the hell am I supposed to do with this???"

"You said you can sing right? Do you know any of Ember's songs?" With this, Anzo got a smile on his face as he started to understand. He slipped backstage and brought out the band, who, somewhat confused, started picking up instruments.

"You can't....but....I....can't...." And she saw Anzo's face. She realized how much money he'd lost tonight, and he did kill the feed like he's promised. She gave one last panicked glare at him. "You owe me SO big for this!"

Song 1 was one of Ember's angrier songs. It started out as a bare croak. She had sang in front of people plenty of times. International TV was something entirely different. She forced her voice to respond and was at least sounding appropriately angsty by the end. The second song was slower and easier on her voice. Unlike Ember's airy ethereal voice, Sascha's was strong and clear. Both were beautiful in very different ways. By the time the song was done, the camera, Anzo and Opal had melted away for her. She sang one more song, and this time couldn't help but have fun. God she loved to sing....

As the third song ended, Anzo shut down the camera. He was looking very strangely at her. "That was...amazing."

She blushed a bit, as awareness rushed back into her. "Well....I'm not just a Slayer...."

"I guess not. You should....give me a call tomorrow morning. Today may not have been a total loss after all. I might just still have a multi-platinum recording artist on my hands. If she's willing, of course."

The blush quickly faded as she turned white as a ghost. "I'm not...umm...I can't...."

Opal grabbed her by the arm and started dragging her towards the front door. "She'll get back to you tomorrow."

"Um...yeah. Tomorrow. I'll...call."

As the two girls got in Opal's VW Bug, Sascha moaned "My life is over...."

"No it isn't. You did great. And the good news for you is that you need a manager, and I have a lot of free time on my hands."

"Oh....goody...."

As Sascha began to lightly pound her head against Opal's dash, Opal mused "You know....if you become famous, I bet it'd be a great platform for my Save the Trees initiative...."

As they pulled out, Sascha looked up long enough to catch the eye of a man standing in the darkness by the side of the road. A man with grey hair, a bushy moustache and a blue ring with a red bull on it. The man was smiling at her.