Flesh and Plastic
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine, never have been mine, never will be mine. But oh the fun things I'd do with them if they were!
Pairing: None
Summary: Response to The Rainbow - Challenge #1. The Mayor wasn't the only one active during the Ascension.
Spoilers: The Witch, Graduation Day pt 2
Distribution: Anyone who has any of my stories, enjoy. Anyone else, just ask. All of my stories can be found at http://www.ficgoddess.com
Author's Notes: A completely and totally non-shippy piece from me! What a thought. Also, my only piece to completely feature a minor character. Needless to say, it's been interesting to write. Perhaps not completely what was intended by the challenge, but…well, I took it in my own direction.Challenge #1:
Scenario: Rewrite a season finale. Use a past "villain" as a positive force in the storyline, working in favor of either the Scoobies or Angel Investigations (depending on which series you use).For two years she'd lived in the most extreme form of isolation possible. No, not lived - existed. Unable to move or to feel. Barely aware of the students that walked by day after endless day with never an end or a change in sight. Her powers stripped from her along with her stolen flesh. Weak. Powerless. Unable to act.
Until now.
For her mind had never rested, always planning her escape. For two years she hadn't the power to leave her plastic prison. She'd hoped that one of the mass of students would mess with magic she shouldn't and maybe, just maybe, Catherine Madison could have had a body again. Fruitless hope. But if she could use that dark power that she felt lurking under this very building, just out of reach….
And then that power began to stir. Awakened by someone else's call, it boiled practically at her feet.
It called to her.
At last, the power strained to break free. Unnatural darkness fell over the town, and the building forces opened her mind to the world around her.
Old fool. Always told him this Ascension thing was a bad idea.
And she smiled to herself, as much as one could smile without a face. This was just what she'd been waiting for. She'd saved the last of her magical reserves for just such an opportunity. Even better than she expected, she could stick it to that backstabbing mayor and free herself at the same time.
That's what you get for not helping me find a better body than my misfit of a daughter.
She wove herself into the power as it grew. Already its purpose was transformative, and only a touch of direction from her was needed to transform something new. She gave it all up - her prison, her survival - for the slight hope that the massing energies might give her flesh. It also meant less power for Wilkens' transformation. He would never be the high demon he'd hoped to be. She could latch on to that small success at least, even as she cast herself into currents that might tear what was left of her apart.
It was dark and light and every color all at once. She tried to wrap herself in it and to flee from it. It was pure agony and pleasure beyond all endurance. But she had to endure - to pull back now would be to be destroyed.
The power rose. Outside, a demon emerged from what was once barely a man. Within, a small portion of his strength was stolen, creating flesh anew. A wail rose, like a creature in its death throws.
Or perhaps, birth.
And Catherine screamed.
The energies passed. Outside, chaos erupted as students banded together to face a ravenous demon serpent. A demon serpent that might have been just a little more powerful had not the powers of its transformation been slightly sidetracked for an act of creation.
Inside, a naked human woman lay amid shards of glass and broken trophies, lifted her head, and smiled.
"Yes," she whispered hoarsely.
Catherine was back. Perhaps not in the form she would have wished, older and out of shape, but there was time enough to take care of that. She looked at her face in a shard of mirror. Ah, to be flesh again. There was plenty of time to find herself a better body.
She stood, running her hands down her sides and simply reveling in sensation. To move, to feel, to be! To speak-
"Clothes. I need clothes." It had been so long since she'd spoken. It felt…strange, and sounded even stranger. But time…she had that now. As much time as flesh would allow.
Completely unashamed of her nakedness, Catherine began to wander down the school corridor. Anyone who might possibly have been there to see her had far more important things to worry about - a giant demon snake outside intent on eating the guests. A nude woman in the high school was hardly a big deal next to that.
Unfortunately, along with the students being missing from the hallways, so too were most of their belongings. Her quest for clothing had managed thus far to only turn up an old broom in the janitorial closet. Some of the student lockers hung open, empty. Those that she managed to open were likewise bare.
An internal alarm went off, making Catherine stiffen mid search. It was like her skin itched all over.
"Oh, you old worm."
The power that made her flesh reverberated with the power that raised the demon. One and the same. And it was that echo that had startled her. Coming closer.
"Better be getting out of here, Catherine."
But where could she be certain of finding some clothing? The lockers were empty for the summer. So, likely, would be the gymnasium locker rooms. Only one place left, where clothes might be left all summer long, and she cringed at the mere thought.
The costume shop. Home of discarded Seventies leisure suits and cast offs no one in their right mind would want to wear. The discards of "helpful" parents' closets. But even the costume shop had faced the same rushed clean out as the rest of the school.
Which was how she ended up in a Hawaiian shirt and a green plastic hula skirt. The shirt smells of old sweat and mothballs. The skirt…did not cover as much as she would have wished. Her nose wrinkled in distaste.
Could have been worse. I could have ended up dressed as a bellhop.
She didn't have time to rethink her choice. A crash in the hallway echoed with renewed alarm in her whole being. No time to waste.
Running out from the costume shop and into the hall, Catherine nearly ran right into the demon. He raged up the corridor, crashing down walls as he went. For one moment, his gaze caught the dark witch. She could see a hint of the near-human he'd been in those strange eyes, buried beneath a demonic hunger and a very human rage.
He hesitated. The girl he was chasing gained a bit of ground. And Catherine scrambled for the first spell that came to mind.
The mayor-snake continued tearing down the corridor as if he'd never seen her.
For a breath of time, Catherine leaned against the doorjamb in relief and exhaustion. She'd had no idea if her spur of the moment spell would work. She could have used up all of her power in building her body. The demon could have been too strong for the spell to effect him. But the power she'd stolen was strong enough, and the demon weakened enough, that she might as well have been invisible. Which was exactly what she had intended.
And then she began to run. Going in the opposite direction from the demon-snake, she barely escaped the explosion that tore apart the school and sent the mayor to the hell in which he belonged.
The flames lit up the whole area, even as the smoke continued the unnatural night. Catherine stood outside the ruined school and laughed in victory.
"You're in for a surprise, Amy," she said to herself in malicious glee. "Mother's home."
As the students ducked and ran from the explosion and the flaming Mayor bits, Xander thought he saw Amy's mom running through the crowd. Which made no sense, because Amy definitely wasn't at graduation, her mother had been missing for something like two years, and was that a bright green hula skirt she was wearing? So he just chuckled at his imagination and dismissed her as the result of being hit on the head by a few too many vampires. By the time he joined up with his friends, he'd completely forgotten what he'd seen.
There was no one at what was once the Madison residence. Amy had managed to turn herself into a rat some months before, thus ensuring that her mother would never, ever want to take over her body again.
And Catherine moved on, with even more power at her command and a dream of cheerleading superstardom still waiting.
Until I receive Angel in
leather pants, I'll keep asking for feedback
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