BtVS / Watchmen: Why We Fight
Oct. 26th, 2005 01:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ffuturesJust a little idea that came to me, a coincidence of timing that seemed worth exploring. Warning, character death.
Why We Fight
by Marcus Rowland
The midnight subway reeks of despair, the people sparse, suffocated by apathy and despair. They banned their heroes, buried them with the Keene act, then wondered at the results. Crime rising, more vandalism, graffiti, litter. Maybe The Comedian was right, and all that is left is the cleansing nuclear fire. Maybe. I choose to think otherwise, refuse to let Keene bury me. I move amongst them, unknown, unnoticed. If I wore my true face it would be different. For now I choose only to watch and listen, study the faces of the sheep and look for the wolves amongst them.
There. Moving through the station towards the trains. A woman, late teens or early twenties, black, black leather coat, close cropped curly hair, white bead necklace. She moves like a hunter, stalking someone ahead of her. A bleached blond punk, looking back and laughing. He knows she's there, doesn't fear her. She doesn't smile, shows no emotion. Whatever game this is, she isn't playing. I follow them to the train, watch her follow him. They move forward through the train, looking for something. An empty car, of course. As soon as they enter the fight begins. I watch through the window from the next car, neither notices.
Both are strong, stronger than any normal human. They're wrecking the car. I look round and find myself alone. I pull on my true face and my gloves, and open the door. Lights dangle from the ceiling, broken, seats torn and wrenched from their frames. The woman pants, but fights as fiercely as ever. The punk isn't even breathing hard. She's on him now, pinning him to the floor, something in her hand... some sort of weapon, wood. There's a moment of darkness and he's on top. The weapon's gone. He hears the door shut behind me and glances up. Suddenly he's snarling, his face inhuman, bestial, his hands at her throat. No time to reach them but I have Daniel's gift. I fire, and the grapnel strikes his shoulder, the hooks embedded in his flesh. He pulls back, forgetting the woman, as I belay the cord around a support pole and wrench him towards me. Instead of fighting, he twists round towards me and charges. Behind him the woman seems to leap to her feet, stoops, and throws. He's nearly on me when he crumbles to dust.
"You're him," says the woman. No fear in her voice, just surprise. "Rorshach." She knows the face, of course. Why isn't she frightened?
"Yes. That was a vampire?"
"Would you believe me if I said 'no?'"
"No games."
"Yes. He was a vampire. William the Bloody, Spike to his enemies."
"Spike?"
"He tortured people with railroad spikes."
The train shudders to a halt. End of the line. She jots something on a scrap of paper, her name, Nikki Wood, and a telephone number. She still isn't frightened. "You ever run into something like that, anything supernatural, gimme a call."
I take the paper, watch her leave, don't try to stop her. By the time I've rewound the grapnel line she's gone.
Weeks later I hear that a woman answering her name and description has been found dead, almost torn apart by something with several knives or razor-sharp claws. I wonder what was gained by my intervention, why we bother to fight.
Maybe The Comedian was right.
End.
Author's Note: in BtVS continuity Nikki Wood was killed by Spike in 1977. In Watchmen continuity the Keene Act banned vigilantes in the same year.
Comments please before I post to archives.
Why We Fight
by Marcus Rowland
The midnight subway reeks of despair, the people sparse, suffocated by apathy and despair. They banned their heroes, buried them with the Keene act, then wondered at the results. Crime rising, more vandalism, graffiti, litter. Maybe The Comedian was right, and all that is left is the cleansing nuclear fire. Maybe. I choose to think otherwise, refuse to let Keene bury me. I move amongst them, unknown, unnoticed. If I wore my true face it would be different. For now I choose only to watch and listen, study the faces of the sheep and look for the wolves amongst them.
There. Moving through the station towards the trains. A woman, late teens or early twenties, black, black leather coat, close cropped curly hair, white bead necklace. She moves like a hunter, stalking someone ahead of her. A bleached blond punk, looking back and laughing. He knows she's there, doesn't fear her. She doesn't smile, shows no emotion. Whatever game this is, she isn't playing. I follow them to the train, watch her follow him. They move forward through the train, looking for something. An empty car, of course. As soon as they enter the fight begins. I watch through the window from the next car, neither notices.
Both are strong, stronger than any normal human. They're wrecking the car. I look round and find myself alone. I pull on my true face and my gloves, and open the door. Lights dangle from the ceiling, broken, seats torn and wrenched from their frames. The woman pants, but fights as fiercely as ever. The punk isn't even breathing hard. She's on him now, pinning him to the floor, something in her hand... some sort of weapon, wood. There's a moment of darkness and he's on top. The weapon's gone. He hears the door shut behind me and glances up. Suddenly he's snarling, his face inhuman, bestial, his hands at her throat. No time to reach them but I have Daniel's gift. I fire, and the grapnel strikes his shoulder, the hooks embedded in his flesh. He pulls back, forgetting the woman, as I belay the cord around a support pole and wrench him towards me. Instead of fighting, he twists round towards me and charges. Behind him the woman seems to leap to her feet, stoops, and throws. He's nearly on me when he crumbles to dust.
"You're him," says the woman. No fear in her voice, just surprise. "Rorshach." She knows the face, of course. Why isn't she frightened?
"Yes. That was a vampire?"
"Would you believe me if I said 'no?'"
"No games."
"Yes. He was a vampire. William the Bloody, Spike to his enemies."
"Spike?"
"He tortured people with railroad spikes."
The train shudders to a halt. End of the line. She jots something on a scrap of paper, her name, Nikki Wood, and a telephone number. She still isn't frightened. "You ever run into something like that, anything supernatural, gimme a call."
I take the paper, watch her leave, don't try to stop her. By the time I've rewound the grapnel line she's gone.
Weeks later I hear that a woman answering her name and description has been found dead, almost torn apart by something with several knives or razor-sharp claws. I wonder what was gained by my intervention, why we bother to fight.
Maybe The Comedian was right.
End.
Author's Note: in BtVS continuity Nikki Wood was killed by Spike in 1977. In Watchmen continuity the Keene Act banned vigilantes in the same year.
Comments please before I post to archives.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 12:40 am (UTC)Joking, of course.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 12:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 10:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 02:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-27 07:11 am (UTC)Of course Rorshach having proof of the supernatural does screw up his big soliloquay in The Watchmen, the scene where he's describing his reaction to the Roche kidnapping. I think we have to assume that over the years he's somehow rationalised the memory away.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 01:01 am (UTC)However I believe that there is a slight error in BtVS continuity; in the subway fight I am 99% certain that Spike stayed in human face all the time, even when he killed Nikki.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 07:49 am (UTC)Maybe it's his reaction to seeing Rorschach. Easy enough to change that.
Oh, as for the genre, he's from The Watchmen by Alan Moore, possibly the best graphic novel ever.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 08:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 09:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 10:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 11:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 02:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 06:42 pm (UTC)Of course, the effects in the Buffyverse would be profound. But then, the Buffyverse crossed with the Watchman reality is itself a boggler.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 10:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-26 10:32 pm (UTC)