taxonomites | 08 | Visual/Location: Gwen's House

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08 | Visual/Location: Gwen's House | Power Outage.

At first, blue light fills the tablet screen, flickering in and out and making little buzz buzz noises. When it zooms out, two pale hands are visible, and the electricity bounces in the air between Gwen Raiden's palms. Now the tablet focuses in on Gwen, whose way of battling stir-craziness is to make pretty blue light shows with her hands. She's reclined on her couch, sinking into the cushion with her feet relaxed in front of her. The palms of her hands are facing each other, and jagged streams of blue light fizz in and out in the gap between them. She looks concentrated, her eyes not wavering from where the bits of electricity are generated, but she's not focused. She's somewhere far, far away. After a while, the light show tends to lose its shine. After a few decades, it's pretty much like throwing a ball up and down, up and down.

And then it seems to be over. There's one last, dying flicker of blue lightning, and then nothing but air. Gwen's hands still hover, but the electricity's gone.

Now her eyes focus, and Gwen returns. She leans up from her reclining position, her legs swinging up over the table and down to the floor. She wiggles her fingers, moves her hands apart and close together. "Okay," she murmurs, her brow furrowed in confusion and suspicion and a little bit of worry. "What's the game?"

As if struck by some idea, she stands up, walks to the other end of the room, and puts her bare hand to a light switch.

Nothing happens, and this might seem ordinary to most Taxon residents, but Gwen looks like she woke up with purple skin. She moves to another part of the room and touches something, and then another, and then another, and when the tablet finally catches her eye again, her brow has softened, her eyes are bright and wide, and her lips are pressed into the most ecstatic smile Taxon's ever seen.

"I can't believe it," she says, aloud, incredulous. She lets out a short laugh. "It's gone."

[OOC: Beginning of Gwen's glitch! No more electricity what could go wronnnngg?]

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Gwen was caught up in the moment, so what would have been her instant smart-ass reply was a little downgraded with her new-found revelation.

And for once, the tablet stalking her every move didn't piss her off that much.

"Oh. Hey, Red." Did she even know Gwen was a bonafied superpowered freak? Did it matter, anymore? "I'm..." What word to choose, how to say it, how not to jinx it? "Normal."

Nope, Willow knew nothing about Gwen. "And you're... not normally normal?" Wow that sounded special. "I mean... are you a witch or something?"

"Nope," she said, in answer to both questions. "I'm---was...a live wire. Literally." She smiled, still reveling in her new found normalness. It was pretty sweet using the past tense. And Gwen didn't feel any hesitation about filling the witch in on the gory details. What did it matter?

"My body runs on electrical energy. It's supposed to, anyway. I won't bore you with the scientific mumbo jumbo. It took me three years to track down something that could fix me--back home. Didn't last. Anyway, just now it just kind of...died out."

"Oh! That's kinda cool." But she could see where it would be a problem. "I wonder if I could find a spell to help that... I-I mean, if this whole fixed thing isn't a permanent thing."

Assuming Gwen wanted it to be permanent, but from the sound of her voice, Willow was willing to bet she did.

"I like specifics." It wouldn't bore her at all. Willow kind of liked that sort of thing.

"Not really," she answers in an instant, with a little smile. She doesn't say that she was eying the witch once upon a time to make work some of her mojo. She had her eyes and ears open when it came to Taxon's more talented citizens, and Willow was definitely one of them. Guess it doesn't matter now, but if everything really did hit the fan, she'll know who to call.

"Really?" she eyes her, with a tad bit of amused interest, and says, "That's basically the gist. I've been like this since I could remember. Found a prototype--real black ops type stuff--that fixed me. A kind of body chemistry regulator. Then everything went to Hell and that was the end of that." A pause followed by a tight, little laugh. "Then I came here, and forgot to pack it."

"That's kinda cool, though." What? Willow likes things like that. It pays that she's the gang's genius. "Did Angel know about all this? I-I mean... y'know, your electricity stuff."

Curious. Always curious. That and she kind of wants to know how trustworthy Gwen is. The girl's starting to warm up to her, but it's still a little weird on the getting to know each other side.

"Could have been, if I could turn it on and off," she answers with a shrug, holding her hand. Willow's admiration of it reminds her of Party. Yeah, it seems cool: like a comic book superhero, right? Not many seemed to get why she wanted to be rid of it. How much it sucked to not be able to hold hands or have a pet or let someone get close.

"It's how we met," she answers, remembering the big handsome lug fondly. She wonders how he's fairing back home against Gunn. Did they stop him? Did they fix everything? Does he hate her? (Probably) "He was looking for some mystical doodad to find his girlfriend. A really expensive mystical doodad. One I was hired to..." Woooord choice... "...Acquire."

Those were the days.

"Oh. Oh." It hits her then and her eyes go wide. Okay that would suck. A lot. Now she gets it.

A magical doodad? "What was it supposed to do? I mean, who was it fixing, what was wrong?"

The unspoken question was why didn't he ask her to help, though a smaller part of her knew the answer was because she was with Buffy, helping out in Sunnydale and they probably couldn't have spared her. Not with everything going on. Even if Angel and Gwen were from Willow's future, she knew there would always be a fight. That's just how it went when you were the best friend of the Slayer.

She nods. Yeah. And her eyebrow raises faintly at the witch's enthusiastic questions. "Kind of like an inter-dimensional telephone. She went missing, he was the big romantic hero set out to find her." Her smile is wistful and a little sad. "Figured I'd throw him a bone. So I let him borrow it."

Long time ago, it seems. And she's studying the girl's reaction. "She turned up later, so I guess that worked out. Not as gentle and heavenly as I would've thought, though," she says, unable to resist the edge.

"That was nice of you." Okay, still trying to figure out a) who this girlfriend of Angel's would be and b) what happens in her future. "Who was he trying to save?"

Because she could think of someone - Cordelia, as weird as that is to consider - but she can't really wrap her mind around Angel or Cordy forgetting their work long enough to do... well... that. And then there's the whole soul-Angelus thing to think about. Okay head hurting from too much concentration.

She smirks. "I think I got the better end of the deal."

Because Cordelia? Not worth 33 million dollars. But you know what they say about love...

(And the fact that Connor had a creepy thing with her way back when? Definitely not a factor in the animosity...)

"Cordelia Chase." She pauses and thinks, as if she's really, really trying to think of something nice to say. "She was...something." She shrugs. "She was important to Connor. And to the big guy."

Cordelia. Well that just added an extra layer to Willow's life. Why couldn't the aliens have left Angel here so she could ask him about it?

"Cordelia's a friend of mine from high school." Is. Was. Whatever. "She's a good person."

Okay, this is awkward. Gwen apparently doesn't like Cordy - which Willow could understand. She was a little difficult sometimes, but she'd turned into a good person underneath all of those high school layers of intense bitch.

Oh. Gwen's face falls just barely, her eyes flashing with realization.

Someone's using present tense and not picking up on Gwen's use of the past. She deducts that the witch doesn't know Cordelia's been dead for...well, maybe a year? How long has it been? She doesn't really know. And maybe it's not the point.

"God, this time thing is really messed up," she says with an awkward sigh. She looks away. Maybe it's right there on her face, but she doesn't say anymore.

Oh, Willow had caught it. She just... didn't want to believe it. But Gwen's comment about time gets a sigh out of her and she finally asks, "How long ago?"

When did Cordelia die?

She gives it some thought. It seems like she's been in Taxon forever. How much time has gone by in the real world, she wonders. Does anyone miss her like they miss Cordelia?

"A year, maybe? Less than. When all that stuff went down with Angel at Wolfram & Hart. They all..." she pauses here, because the sentence doesn't come out as easily as she thought it would. "...started dropping like flies once they took the gig at that place."

God. What a way for the good guys to end, huh? Gwen shakes her head, a bitter gesture.

Willow could answer one of those questions, mostly because she almost has been in Taxon forever.

"A year for you," she agrees carefully. "And you're from my future." Everyone's always from her future. She should just find a poster and write 'FROM YOUR PAST. PLEASE UPDATE.' on it. "Like Fred. And..." She frowned. "Wesley, too, right?" Hadn't someone told her that?

She nods. "And...Charles. Gunn. Not sure if you knew him." She stops, looking down, and her lips press into a small, sad smile. "He was a real dish. Suave-ist guy I knew. Never could admit he was better than he thought he was."

She stops, as if realizing her mouth's gotten away from her. It's not like her, but she hasn't had many opportunities to talk about those guys. It hurts, and it feels good at the same time.

"Anyway. You've seen the blue chick, right? Miss Holier than Thou? That's what nipped cherry in the bud. Creepy, right?" Lucky for her, Illyria seems to be before her time. Otherwise she might have to face some not-so-pleasant memories of the past, and her actions in Hell-L.A.

Willow notices the way Gwen's mouth draws up, but she has enough tact not to comment on it. That would be like someone pushing her about Tara.

"She's just another hell-god," the redhead answers with a shrug. Clearly, she's met a hell-god before and she wasn't the one who came out the worst for it. "She can be stopped."

Gwen looks at her, a little bit of surprise on her face. "You have much experience with hell-gods?" she asks.

Illyria was the first one Gwen's had to deal with. And it wasn't fun. From what she heard, she spent most of her time hitting things and following Spike around. But she imagined the loss hit Gunn pretty hard, and the sight was creepy enough. Still is.

"A little. We fought Glorificus two years ago and we won."

Okay, she couldn't be completely nonchalant about it because it was a pretty big deal. Dawn... and Tara... and Buffy dying.

"She brain-sucked my girlfriend, so I kinda... lost my temper at her." Black magic: a witch's version of losing control. "But in the end, we stopped her and now there's no more Glory-hell-god."

Her eyes widen a little bit, looking impressed. "Nice," she says, with a nod, looking the witch over. She doesn't know what this Glorificus thing is, but if she's anything like Illyria? Girl must be toting some serious power juice. Not a bad chick to have on your side, that's for sure. "Sounds like she deserved it.

Willow made a face. "She was kinda trying to kill Dawnie and suck the world into a hell dimension. She definitely deserved it." And if she ever turned up here, the redheaded witch would make certain she paid for everything again.

The first thought that enters Gwen's mind is: Wow, honey. You have a lot of friends. And whoever this god is, it sounds like she beat the hell out of all of them. And note to self: if she ever turns up here, find a nice little hole to hide in.

The second thought is: "Hell dimension, huh? You sure she didn't succeed?" Because when she left L.A., it definitely wasn't a sunny paradise. If it wasn't the evil law firm, Gwen would place her money on a power-hungry hell god. Why not?

"Definitely sure. That was two years ago." And as far as she knew, Sunnydale was still Sunnydale after everything had happened because dear Buffy had sacrificed herself to save the world from that fate. And then dear Willow had pulled her out of heaven like a good best friend does. Sigh.

"Don't worry. We took care of it."

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08 | Visual/Location: Gwen's House | Power Outage.

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