Chapter Text
The drive from Sunnydale High to the Summers' house on Revello Drive was suffocatingly normal on the surface, but the air inside the vehicle felt razor-thin.
Giles drove with stiff, exaggerated precision, his knuckles white against the steering wheel. Peggy sat in the passenger seat, her posture as immaculate as an iron rod, staring straight through the windshield as the suburban California palms flickered past. In the back seat, Buffy and Willow sat pressed against opposite doors, the silence between them heavy with a decade's worth of unsaid shifts.
"So," Buffy said, her voice cutting through the hum of the engine with deliberate, defensive casualness. "Pot roast. It's... a lot of meat. I hope you aren't a vegetarian, Miss Carter. Or, you know, whatever S.H.I.E.L.D. directors eat. Protein shakes? Rations?"
"I eat quite normally, Miss Summers," Peggy replied, her crisp British accent cutting through the front seat without her turning her head. "And pot roast sounds entirely delightful."
Willow kept her eyes glued to the passing houses, her fingers nervously twisting a loose thread on her sweater. Her mind was remarkably quiet now, the lingering echo of Peggy’s earlier mental touch keeping the typical high-school panic at a dull, manageable vibration. She looked at Buffy, whose jaw was set in that familiar, stubborn line she usually saved for vampires who refused to turn into dust on the first punch.
A strange, tentative thought began to take root in the back of Willow's brain. Peggy had called Buffy a physical powerhouse—someone who channelled her raw mental focus inward to hyper-accelerate her body. If Buffy was a sub-operant too, did that mean her mind could operate on that same hidden frequency? Was she latent like me? Is she telepathic?
Willow swallowed, her throat dry. She looked at the side of Buffy's face, staring intently at her friend's profile against the passing blur of suburban palms. If an eleven-year-old in England could reach across an entire ocean, surely she could manage a distance of three feet across a vinyl car seat.
She took a slow, quiet breath, trying to mimic the weightless, clear sensation she had felt when Peggy opened the three-way link. She focused entirely on the image of Buffy in her head, gathered up her courage, and pushed a single word across the gap.
Hello? Willow said inside her mind, directing the thought straight toward her best friend. Buffy, can you hear me?
Buffy didn't blink. She just kept staring aggressively at the back of Giles's head, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, completely oblivious to the mental signal bouncing harmlessly off her unshielded, un-attuned consciousness.
Peggy, however, didn't miss it. In the front seat, her flawless, vintage hair roll didn't shift a millimeter, but Willow felt a sudden, microscopic ripple of warm, telepathic amusement brush against the outer edge of her thoughts.
Peggy didn't turn around, but her presence slipped back into Willow’s mind with the weightless ease of a shadow sliding across a wall.
Telepathy is very much like speaking aloud, Willow, Peggy’s thoughts resonated, cool, structured, and entirely private between the two of them. If you simply project a raw concept into the ether out of nerves, you are essentially shouting in an empty room. Anyone with an attuned ear can hear you, which is why I intercepted it. To reach a specific mind, you must fine-tune your focus. You have to locate their unique neural signature first, lock onto it, and direct the thought down that precise vector. Otherwise, it is just static.
Willow blinked, her chest tightening slightly as she absorbed the clinical advice. She looked back at Buffy, who was still chewing on her lower lip, entirely oblivious to the silent lecture happening in the air around her.
Locate the signature, Willow repeated to herself. Her analytical brain, the part of her that mapped complex computer code loop by loop, instantly latched onto the logic. She closed her eyes, ignoring the physical hum of the car engine and the passing streetlights.
She began to search.
Instead of pushing a word outward, she pulled her awareness inward, reaching across the short distance of the vinyl seat. She looked for the distinct energetic footprint of her best friend—the bright, chaotic, high-velocity warmth that defined Buffy Summers. It took a few seconds of intense concentration, filtering through the ambient background noise of Giles’s anxious breathing in the front seat, until she felt it. A sharp, vibrating node of raw kinetic intent.
Willow locked onto it, stabilized her mental grip, and tried again, softer this time.
Buffy? she thought, directing the word with pinpoint precision straight into the center of that vibrating warmth. It's me. Can you feel this?
Buffy turned her head so fast her hair whipped across her cheek, her eyes wide as she stared directly into Willow’s face.
Willow? Buffy’s voice cracked directly inside Willow’s brain, completely frantic and shockingly loud. What is happening? Why are you inside my ears? Are you okay? Is the creepy lady doing this to you right now?
Willow nearly jumped out of her skin, her eyes flying open as the sheer volume of Buffy’s mental response rattled her thoughts.
No, no, I'm okay! Willow thought back quickly, trying to lower her own internal volume to show Buffy how to modulate the link. I'm doing it. Miss Carter told me how to find your neural signature. We're telepathing!
Buffy blinked, her eyes darting toward the front seat where Giles was aggressively signaling a right turn and Peggy was staring placidly at the road. We are? Like, fully communicating without moving our lips? This is bizarre. It feels like my thoughts are wearing your sweater.
A genuine, breathless laugh escaped Willow's lips in the physical world, breaking the suffocating silence of the backseat.
It works because you're a sub-operant too, Buffy, Willow explained, her confidence surging as she held the connection steady. Your mind handles force, and mine handles movement, but our baselines are the same.
Buffy’s profile softened, a wave of profound, protective relief bleeding through the telepathic link directly into Willow’s awareness. Well, tell your brain to stay right there. If you're really doing this—if you're going to England—then we're making sure this S.H.I.E.L.D. setup is ironclad before you leave. Nobody handles my best friend without an interrogation. Clear?
Willow let out a small, relieved breath, her smile returning. Clear.
Before either of them could say anything further, the car tires crunched smoothly onto the gravel driveway of 1630 Revello Drive. Giles shifted the engine into park, the sudden click of the transmission signaling their arrival as the front doors opened.
Joyce Summers stepped out onto the front porch, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel, the warm, savory scent of pot roast drifting out through the open screen door behind her.
Buffy bounced up the concrete path, leaving the heavy tension of the car ride at the fence line. She greeted her mom with a quick, reassuring kiss on the cheek.
"Hey, Mom! Sorry I'm late, school database chaos," Buffy said, her tone bright, practiced, and perfectly tailored to hide the supernatural and metapsychic reality of her afternoon. She gestured back toward the driveway with a casual wave of her hand. "And I brought a few extra friends for dinner..."
She paused, stepping aside as Giles and Willow approached the porch, leaving a clear line of sight to the final passenger stepping out of the front seat of the vehicle.
Peggy Carter closed the car door with a firm, solid thud. She walked up the path with effortless, spine-straight elegance, her tailored suit immaculate, and her dark hair perfectly set in its precise, vintage roll.
Joyce smiled warmly, opening her mouth to welcome the unexpected guest, but as her eyes locked onto Peggy's classic features, she froze mid-step on the porch.
"And this is Miss Carter," Buffy added quickly, oblivious to her mother's sudden stillness. "She's from England, and she actually wants to take Willow back with her on this huge international research fellowship thing."
Joyce didn't break her gaze. She stepped down from the porch, her eyes tracing the flawless, youthful lines of the guest's face.
Slowly, Joyce extended a hand toward her.
"I am well aware of who Peggy Carter is," Joyce said, her voice steady but carrying a distinct, quiet undercurrent of absolute astonishment.
She didn't push the issue. She didn't demand any explanations right there on the path. Instead, with a lifetime of polite, maternal composure, she simply left it at that, stepping back to hold open the screen door.
"Please, come inside," Joyce invited, gesturing them into the warmth of the hallway. "The roast is just about finished."
Buffy, Willow, and Giles moved past her into the house, completely focused on the administrative and tactical weight of the upcoming dinner. In their haste, the slip of the tongue went entirely unnoticed. No one in the trio picked up on the fact that Buffy had only introduced the guest as Miss Carter—yet Joyce had used her first name without being told.
The dining room was warm, filled with the rich scent of rosemary and slow-cooked beef, but the domestic clatter of silverware against porcelain did little to soften the underlying gravity of the meeting.
As the pot roast was passed around the table, the conversation naturally progressed from tentative small talk to the clinical realities of the transition.
Peggy sat with perfect posture, handling her fork with practiced efficiency, completely unbothered by the subtle, investigating glances Giles kept throwing her way from across the table.
The conversation drifted naturally over the meal, keeping to light, easy topics as everyone subtly tried to settle their nerves. Joyce asked about the weather in England, prompting Giles to drop into a comfortable, familiar complaint about the relentless British rain versus the constant California sun.
"Oh, it's not all dreary, Rupert," Peggy noted with a faint, amused smile, smoothly passing the basket of rolls across the table. "Oxford has its brilliant days, especially in the spring. The architecture looks quite magnificent when the light catches the stone just right."
"I suppose," Giles muttered, taking a roll with a polite nod. "Though I do remember the winters being particularly damp. One must always keep an umbrella within arm's reach."
Buffy leaned her chin on her hand, a small smirk breaking through her serious expression as she looked at Willow. "Hear that, Will? Better swap the oversized sweaters for a raincoat. Though, knowing you, you’ll probably find a way to coordinate them."
"I have a very nice yellow slicker," Willow offered, her voice bright as she joined in on the easy banter. "And my corduroy jackets are pretty sturdy. Plus, think of all the old libraries. They must smell incredible, Giles."
"Oh, absolutely," Giles agreed, his academic eyes lighting up for a brief second. "The Bodleian is unparalleled. The scent of aged leather and vellum is... well, it's quite intoxicating for anyone with a proper appreciation for history."
Joyce watched the exchange from the head of the table, her expression warm and hospitable, though her eyes lingered just a moment longer on Peggy each time the guest spoke. She refilled Peggy's water glass with an effortless, polite grace. "It sounds like a wonderful opportunity for her, Miss Carter. It's not every day a Sunnydale student gets scouted for something so prestigious."
"We only look for the rarest minds, Mrs Summers," Peggy replied softly, meeting Joyce's gaze with a polite, perfectly composed nod. "And Willow is exceptional."
Giles froze mid-bite, his fork hovering an inch above his plate. He adjusted his glasses, his brow furrowing as his analytical mind instantly flagged the phrasing. He looked at Joyce, his voice cutting through the easy clatter of the dinner table.
"Prestigious?" Giles repeated softly. "Forgive me, Joyce, but I don't recall any of us mentioning the word 'prestigious' or the specific reputation of the fellowship before we sat down. We only said Miss Carter wanted to take Willow to England for a research track. You know Miss Carter?"
Joyce paused with the water pitcher, looking genuinely surprised that no one else in the room seemed to have a clue. She set the pitcher down on the table, her gaze moving from Giles to the girls.
"Rupert," Joyce said, her tone carrying a sudden, light-hearted disbelief. "You know Peggy too. Albeit she is looking incredibly good for her age."
Joyce offered a polite, knowing nod directly to Peggy, who sat perfectly still across the table, her expression masking a sudden, sharp calculation.
Joyce turned back to the rest of the table, gesturing toward their guest as if stating the most obvious fact in the world. "This is Agent Peggy Carter. The hero of World War II and the girlfriend of Captain America."
Buffy’s jaw dropped, her fork slipping from her fingers and clattering loudly against the edge of her plate. She stared wide-eyed at the flawless, twenty-eight-year-old face of the woman sitting in her dining room, then at her mother, and finally at Giles, whose face had gone entirely bloodless.
The dining room exploded into a chaotic overlap of voices as the sudden revelation shattered the domestic quiet.
"Captain America?" Buffy practically choked on the word, her hands slamming flat onto the table as she leaned forward, her eyes darting frantically between her mother and the guest. "Like, the Captain America? Comic books, shield, frozen-in-the-ice Captain America? Mom, what are you talking about? She looks our age!"
Giles was adjusting his spectacles so rapidly they threatened to fly off his face entirely. "Good lord... Agent Carter? Of the Strategic Scientific Reserve? The co-founder of... I mean to say, the historical archives from the European theater—" He cut himself off, his brain short-circuiting as the fragments of classified S.H.I.E.L.D. history and modern metapsychic theory violently collided in his head.
"I remember seeing your photograph in the Smithsonian exhibit during our trip to D.C.," Joyce added, entirely oblivious to the panic around her, looking at Peggy with genuine, polite admiration. "You haven't changed a single bit. It's truly remarkable."
Willow sat completely frozen amidst the vocal crossfire. She obviously knew about Captain America—everyone who had ever opened a history textbook or seen a newsreel did—but the name Peggy Carter hadn't immediately clicked until Joyce laid it out. Her analytical brain spun, instantly connecting the ageless face, the incredible mental power, and the sheer historical gravity of the woman sitting across from her.
Instead of adding to the vocal noise, Willow pulled her awareness inward and opened the clear, private telepathic channel directly to Peggy.
You said you were old, Willow's thoughts resonated inside Peggy's mind, carrying a breathless, wide-eyed mix of shock and total awe. You didn't say you were famous, too.
Peggy didn't flinch. In the physical world, she smoothly set her linen napkin down beside her plate, her expression shifting into a look of quiet, elegant modesty.
"The history books tend to embellish the reality of the war, Mrs. Summers," Peggy said aloud to the table, her physical voice perfectly calm, humble, and devoid of any grandiosity. "I was simply a soldier doing a necessary job during a very dark time in our history. The true accolades belong to the men who didn't return."
Simultaneously, her thoughts drifted back down the private link into Willow's mind, carrying that same disciplined, gentle modesty.
Fame is a very loud, very distracting illusion, Willow, Peggy’s mental voice replied softly. In our line of work, being famous is usually a tactical error. I was simply fortunate enough to stand beside remarkable people. Do not let the history books distract you from the architecture we are building here.
Peggy turned her attention back to the head of the table, her blue eyes softening as she offered a polite, genuinely touched smile. "I must admit, Mrs Summers, I am quite surprised you remember me. The war was a very long time ago, and my face was rarely the focus of those old newsreels."
Joyce instantly flushed a deep, vibrant crimson, her fingers hovering nervously over the handle of the water pitcher.
"Well," Joyce blurted out, her maternal composure completely shattering into a wave of pure, girlish embarrassment. "To be completely honest, I... I might have had a bit of a crush on you in my youth. You were just so fierce and intelligent in those photographs, and every girl in my neighborhood wanted to be exactly like you."
Buffy's jaw dropped even lower, her eyes widening to the size of saucers as she stared at her mother in absolute, unadulterated shock.
"Mom!" Buffy gasped, her voice hitting a high, defensive register. "Did you just tell a legendary World War II hero that you used to crush on her? Over pot roast? While she's trying to recruit my best friend?"
Joyce’s blush deepened, but she held her ground, clearing her throat and offering a defensive shrug.
"Oh, hush, Buffy. It was a very popular sentiment when I was a teen."
Joyce offered a defensive shrug, her cheeks still sporting a prominent pink flush as she reached for her wine glass. "Everyone our age was completely obsessed with the wartime journals and the retro lifestyle. You were the ultimate role model, Agent Carter."
Buffy looked like she was actively trying to dissolve into the floral wallpaper of the dining room. She rubbed her temples, looking entirely overwhelmed. "Great. Fantastic. My mom had a teen crush on the ageless spy who is currently squatting in Willow’s guest room. Can this apocalypse get any more awkward?"
Giles merely stared into his mashed potatoes, completely silent, as if hoping that if he didn't move, the laws of temporal physics and historical continuity would magically reassert themselves.
Peggy, however, remained entirely untroubled, her posture elegant and relaxed as she offered Joyce another polite, warm nod. "You are far too kind, Joyce. I can assure you, the reality of the Strategic Scientific Reserve was mostly paperwork and cold tea."
Peggy’s eyes lingered on Joyce, her gaze softening into a look that was entirely private.
For all her calculated, global foresight, Peggy was still a woman who had lived through the lonely architecture of a century that had largely left her behind. To hear her own history spoken aloud, not as a classified asset code or a tactical data point, but as a living piece of someone’s girlhood admiration, struck a chord she rarely permitted herself to feel.
She watched Joyce laugh off the embarrassment, noting the genuine warmth in the woman's face.
She has a lovely mind, Willow, Peggy’s thoughts drifted down the silent telepathic channel, entirely separate from the clatter of the dining room. Untouched by the rot of the shadow war. It is a very rare kind of sanctuary.
Willow looked up from her plate, catching the subtle, lingering look Peggy was giving her mother. It was the first time she had seen the untouchable S.H.I.E.L.D. Director look entirely human.
The dinner plates were cleared, and the quiet domestic rhythm shifted seamlessly into the living room. Joyce served coffee and tea in her best porcelain cups, while Giles sat rigidly on the edge of the armchair, nursing a small glass of scotch as if it were a medicinal lifeline.
Peggy sat on the sofa, her posture still perfectly immaculate, holding her teacup with practiced, elegant ease. Buffy and Willow squeezed onto the love seat opposite her, the silent telepathic link they had formed in the car now buried under a mountain of anticipation.
The comfortable clatter of spoons against porcelain quickly faded, leaving the room heavy with the unspoken truth Joyce had dropped at the table.
"Alright," Buffy said, setting her mug down on the coffee table with a sharp click, breaking the silence. "The pot roast was great, the small talk was lovely, but we are officially past the point of casual. Mom says you're a World War II hero who hasn't aged since the Truman administration, and you say you're a S.H.I.E.L.D. Director who can read minds. I think it's time for the story, Miss Carter. The real one."
Peggy set her teacup down on the saucer, her blue eyes tracking Buffy’s defensive posture before settling over the rest of the room.
"I was born in April of 1921," Peggy began, her crisp British accent steady and completely devoid of drama. "Which makes me seventy-seven years old, despite what your eyes tell you. In 1943, I was an officer with the Strategic Scientific Reserve, standing in a hidden laboratory in Brooklyn when Steve Rogers was injected with the Super Soldier Serum. The machine suffered a catastrophic environmental radiation leak—unshielded Vita-Rays that flooded the room."
Giles adjusted his spectacles, leaning forward, his academic instincts overriding his panic. "And that radiation... it altered your cellular structure?"
Peggy turned to Giles and offered a faint, fleeting smile. "No. It did nothing to me other than give me a bit of a headache at the time. The radiation did precisely what it was designed to do—it made Steve into Captain America. My own biology remained entirely ordinary."
She looked back at Buffy, her expression sharpening into its usual, immaculate composure. "My change came a year later, in 1944. During a deep-cover tactical operation in occupied Europe, my unit was compromised by an early Hydra division utilizing experimental, volatile energy weapons."
The room grew completely still as Peggy’s gaze drifted toward the dark window, her voice cooling as she recalled the memory.
"They pinned me down inside an enclosed concrete bunker, and the Hydra commander ordered my execution. Facing certain death, my mind experienced a profound, violent psychological snap."
She leaned forward slightly, her blue eyes locking onto Buffy's with absolute intensity. "I didn't draw a weapon. I simply looked at the Hydra squad and projected a wave of absolute, terrifying authority. The soldiers instantly froze, their willpower entirely crushed by what I later understood to be the first recorded usage of Paramount Coercion. Simultaneously, my mind opened to the horizon, my telepathy functioning as high-grade Farsensing, mapping the thoughts and positions of every enemy soldier across a ten-mile radius. That was the day my abilities awakened, and I spent the next several decades self-teaching my powers in total secrecy, operating under the assumption that I was completely unique."
Peggy paused, taking a slow, measured sip of her tea before continuing. "As you might imagine, those newly awakened faculties proved immensely useful in the years that followed. In the post-war era, navigating the aggressively all-male ranks of the Strategic Scientific Reserve was an intelligence war in its own right. Men who would have normally dismissed a woman's tactical assessment found themselves inexplicably inclined to agree with my strategy. I didn't abuse the power, but I fine-tuned it, using subtle coercion to bypass their prejudices until I rose to become the agency's director."
Giles stared into his scotch, completely captivated by the sheer administrative genius of it. "And that led to S.H.I.E.L.D."
"Precisely," Peggy said, setting her cup back onto its saucer with a sharp, neat click. "When we transitioned the S.S.R. into S.H.I.E.L.D. to monitor the emerging Cold War, I was the one pulling the structural strings. But it was during that transition, as the late 1940s bled into the 1950s, that I noticed a far more alarming anomaly. My colleagues were graying. Howard Stark was developing wrinkles. Yet every single morning, the face staring back at me in the mirror was entirely unchanged from the day I stood in that concrete bunker in 1944. I wasn't aging a single day."
"I realized very quickly that the world wasn't ready for a woman who could command the room with her thoughts and never grow old," Peggy continued, her voice dropping into a quieter register. "So I buried it. I faked my own administrative files, created a labyrinth of deep-cover identities, and kept my gifts an absolute secret. For over twenty years, I operated under the assumption that I was a completely solitary fluke of human biology."
She looked over at Willow, a faint, nostalgic glint in her blue eyes.
"Until July of 1968," Peggy said, a genuine smile breaking through her immaculate composure. "S.H.I.E.L.D. was hosting a highly classified tactical intelligence summit at the Mount Washington Hotel, deep in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I was there under a tight operational cover, looking precisely twenty-eight years old despite the decades on my birth certificate. And that was where I met a charming, utterly incorrigible French-Canadian bachelor named Rogatien Remillard."
Willow's eyes widened slightly, recognizing the family name Peggy had dropped back in the office.
"Rogi was working as the resort's hospitality coordinator," Peggy explained, her tone laced with dry amusement. "He was a smooth-talking scoundrel who fancied himself a ladies' man, and he made the tactical error of sliding a low-grade, flirtatious telepathic nudge straight into my mind to read my mood. The moment his thoughts brushed my consciousness, my instinct kicked in. I dropped an iron vault of Paramount Coercion on him and froze his nervous system right there on the veranda."
Giles let out a soft, stunned breath, his glass of scotch momentarily forgotten in his hand.
"And how did he react?" Buffy asked, leaning forward, completely gripped by the story.
"He laughed," Peggy said softly. "He laughed telepathically with pure, unadulterated delight. He didn't run, and he didn't panic. In that singular moment, as our minds locked, the illusion of my total isolation was shattered. We slipped away to a private suite overlooking the mountains, and we spent the entire night trading secrets. He realized I was an ageless mind-master, and I learned for the very first time that there was an entire genetic powerhouse of a family tree—the Remillards—born with these exact same rare, biological anomalies."
Buffy blinked, her eyes darting between Peggy's impeccable posture and the empty teacup. "Is 'trading secrets' seventies slang for hooking up? Because it sounds a lot like you're saying you two..."
"Buffy!" Joyce scolded sharply, her blush returning with an aggressive vengeance as she nearly spilled her wine. "Honestly!"
Peggy didn't flinch. Instead, a genuine, completely unbothered ripple of amusement danced in her blue eyes. "It is quite alright, Joyce. Your daughter merely possesses a healthy tactical curiosity. And to answer your question, Miss Summers—yes, Rogi was an exceptionally handsome, single man, and we enjoyed each other’s company immensely. But the intellectual revelations of that evening were far more consequential for the fate of this world than the physical ones."
While Joyce was busy fussing over her wine glass, Buffy’s voice cracked directly inside Willow’s brain once more, the link between them opening up with a sudden, sharp clarity.
Did the seventy-seven-year-old spy just casually admit to getting busy with a psychic Canadian in the sixties? Buffy’s internal thoughts were practically vibrating with a mix of shock and total amusement. Because my brain is officially melting, Will.
Willow didn't move an inch on the love seat, but her mental reply was swift and deeply analytical, her mind mapping the structural weight of what Peggy had just revealed. Buffy, focus. If the Remillards have an entire family tree of operants, it means it's completely genetic. It isn't just random luck.
Welcome to the true catalyst of the Inklings Protocol, Peggy’s voice suddenly entered the channel, seamlessly joining the backseat link without breaking her physical composure.
The two girls both blinked, looking across the coffee table as Peggy smoothly continued her spoken story aloud for Joyce and Giles, while simultaneously projecting the deeper, colder logic straight into their heads.
"After that night in New Hampshire, my entire worldview suffered a massive structural shift," Peggy said aloud, her physical voice steady and precise. "I was forced to discard the comfort of my own uniqueness. I had to look at the global landscape through a purely biological lens."
"I had to ask myself a chilling question," Peggy said, her physical voice dropping into a low register that pulled everyone in the living room into absolute silence. "If a French-Canadian lineage was carrying a hereditary metapsychic mutation, what about my own bloodline? If the Remillards were flaring on the radar, were the Carters carrying the exact same volatile, latent architecture?"
Giles set his scotch down on the side table, his brow furrowing as he tracked the sheer, cold logic of her inquiry. "You began to look inward."
"I did," Peggy confirmed, her eyes fixed on the flickering light of the fireplace. "In the early 1970s, I quietly established what I called the Inklings Protocol. On the surface of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s mainframe, it looked like a standard psychological profiling dragnet designed to flag eccentric, high-IQ defectors or fringe academics. In reality, it was a ghost surveillance filter running silently beneath standard intelligence streams, designed to scan the globe for scarce, uncalibrated operants."
She paused, looking directly at Willow, then at Buffy.
"But my most intense, unyielding surveillance was turned entirely toward my own family tree," Peggy said, her expression entirely focused. "The Carter family is quite small, which made the parameters manageable. I used my Farsensing Telepathy to systematically test their private mental spaces without their knowledge, tracking their neural signatures. To protect them from a world that would weaponise them, I had to be absolutely certain of their status."
She set her teacup down, her fingers resting lightly on the porcelain.
"My brother and sister-in-law showed no signs of operancy, nor did their son. But their daughter, Claire, was a different story. By the time she turned ten, I knew she had the potential to be fully operant. The raw power was there, it was just buried beneath the typical mental static of a young child."
Willow leaned forward, her analytical mind parsing the sequence. "So you stepped in?"
"Not directly," Peggy said with a faint smile. "For two years, I played subtle mental games with her. I dropped telepathic puzzles and mental mirages into her daily life, nudging her subconscious to test her limits and forcing her to rely on raw instinct to navigate her own brain. It was a highly unorthodox game of psychic hide-and-seek."
Buffy crossed her arms, her defensive instincts flaring slightly on behalf of the ten-year-old Claire. "And when she figured it out?"
"When she turned twelve, her latent faculties cleanly locked into focus," Peggy explained smoothly. "She was a fully functioning Master Farsensor and Master Redactor. Once she realized her full potential, I sat her down and told her the absolute truth about our shared biology and the hidden reality of the world. I cloaked her files entirely, ensuring she remained completely invisible to hostile intelligence services."
"Claire grew into a very intelligent woman," Peggy added softly. She shifted her gaze, looking directly at Buffy. "And eventually, she forgave my mental probing of her as a child."
Buffy’s posture softened slightly, though her eyes remained sharp. "Glad to hear she didn't hold a grudge. Most kids just get grounded; they don't usually have their brains rewired for fun."
"It wasn't for amusement, Buffy. It was for her survival. Claire has every right to resent the methods I chose. Had there been another way, I would have taken it. But an untrained, loud psychic mind is a beacon. By forcing her to strengthen her mental shields early, I denied hostile intelligence services the easiest target they would ever have found."
Willow leaned back, her mind spinning as she stared at the floorboards, trying to map the sheer scale of what Peggy had built. "You weren't protecting one child. You were building an intelligence network before anyone else knew there was a war."
"It was a necessity," Peggy said, her tone brooked no argument. "The world was getting louder. The Remillard line in Canada was already drawing murmurs in deep-black intelligence circles. If any hostile agencies had connected the dots between hereditary metapsychic mutations and the Carter lineage, Claire wouldn't have had a life. She would have had a cell."
Giles took a slow sip of his scotch, his expression deeply troubled but intensely analytical. "And by forcing her into that psychic hide-and-seek, you essentially taught her how to build an impenetrable fortress around her own mind before she even understood what she was hiding."
"Exactly," Peggy nodded. "Master Redaction is not just about altering others; it is about absolute control over one's own neural architecture. By the time she was a teenager, Claire could erect a mind shield that even experienced farsensors struggled to breach. She was no longer an easy target."
Peggy paused, her gaze dropping back to her teacup, her fingers lightly tracing its rim as her voice shifted into a quieter, more personal register.
"And then, about twelve years ago, Claire found out that she was pregnant. I was deeply pleased for her and her husband, Mark Simmons. He is a good man, a completely normal human, completely unaware of the broader reality. But deep down, a chilling theory began to take root in my mind. If this metapsychic mutation was truly hereditary, what would happen to the next generation?"
Giles set his scotch down completely, his attention utterly fixed on Peggy. "You suspected the trait would be dominant."
"I did," Peggy confirmed. "So, I approached Claire with my concerns. She understood the stakes implicitly, and she agreed that we couldn't afford to be blind. We needed to know what we were dealing with. What we didn't expect was how quickly the answers would come. Remarkably soon into her pregnancy, Claire found herself bonding—truly bonding, telepathically—with the developing embryo."
Willow's eyes widened, a small gasp escaping her lips. "With the embryo? Like, a direct mind-to-mind link before the neural pathways were even fully formed in the physical world?"
"Precisely," Peggy said, looking directly at Willow. "It defied conventional medical logic, but within the realm of high-tier operancy, the spirit and the latent mental architecture do not wait for a birth certificate. We both pondered if the unborn child was gifted, and the evidence was undeniable. The embryonic mind was already flaring with a faint, beautiful heat."
Buffy leaned forward, her protective instincts subtly shifting from Claire to this unborn child. "So what did you do? You didn't play psychic hide-and-seek with a baby in the womb, did you?"
"No," Peggy said softly, a faint, tender smile gracing her features. "The approach had to be entirely different. We didn't test it. Instead, we opened our minds to it. Together, Claire and I projected a lattice of absolute safety, warmth, and quietude around that tiny, developing consciousness. And through that bond, we began to teach it."
"Teach it what?" Giles asked, his voice low and strained with fascination.
"We taught it how to sleep in the dark without shouting," Peggy explained. "An operant fetus, if startled or distressed, could release a psychic pulse that would act as a beacon to every hostile sensor on the planet. So, while it was still in the womb, we taught it the absolute fundamentals of the mind shield. We breathed the architecture of secrecy into its nascent subconscious, teaching it to curl its aura tightly inward, to hide its light before it ever took its first breath of air."
"The child, a girl, was born two days early," Peggy continued, her eyes reflecting the memory of that night. "Because she arrived ahead of schedule, I wasn't at the hospital. I was miles away, resting in my own bed, reading a book. But exactly an hour after the child, Jemma, was born, I received a mental summons."
The living room went dead silent. Even Buffy held her breath, her eyes locked on Peggy.
"I was turning a page when I felt a distinct, crystal-clear resonance tap directly into my private mental signature," Peggy said, a touch of lingering wonder in her voice. "A voice, impossibly articulate for a newborn, spoke directly into my mind: 'Hello, Aunt Peggy. It's nice to finally meet you.'"
Giles’s jaw dropped slightly. "An hour after birth?"
"An hour," Peggy repeated. "Not only had this hour-old baby flawlessly locked onto my specific neural frequency, but she had also completely bypassed the physical distance to locate exactly where I was. And she didn't stop there. Jemma used an extracorporeal excursion—projecting her astral consciousness bodily out of the hospital room—to visit me right there in my bedroom."
Willow practically choked on her air. "An astral projection? At one hour old? That... that requires a level of metaphysical detachment that takes sorcerers decades to master!"
"She stood at the foot of my bed, a perfect, glowing manifestation of raw operant energy," Peggy said softly. "And she looked at me and said, 'Can you come to the hospital? We need to speak.'"
Buffy let out a long, slow whistle, shaking her head. "Okay. Wow. And I thought waking up with super-strength at fifteen was a trip. A newborn baby commanding a boardroom meeting via ghost projection. That is a whole new level of terrifying."
"It wasn't terrifying, Buffy. It was breathtaking," Peggy said, though her expression tightened as she brought her story back to the present day. "But it proved my absolute worst fears. Jemma didn't just inherit our traits; she bypassed the latency phase entirely. She was born wide awake. And over the years, one truth became impossible to ignore. Her greatest gift was never telepathy or extracorporeal excursion. It was that she could sense other operants. She could find them."
Peggy paused, letting the silence settle into the room. She noticed the slight tension in Giles's posture, the way his analytical mind was already calculating the impossible geometry of a worldwide radar.
"Now, understand," Peggy clarified, raising a hand before Giles could speak. "Jemma's gift isn't omniscience. She cannot simply sweep the globe on a whim. Even her mind has limits, and the sheer volume of global mental static would crush her if she tried to absorb it all at once. She must first choose where to look."
Giles took off his glasses, cleaning them with deliberate care as he leaned forward. "And why Sunnydale?"
"Because for nearly fifty years, every anomalous intelligence report crossing my desk eventually circled back to one single, geographic point," Peggy explained, her voice dropping into a colder, professional register. "During my tenure at S.H.I.E.L.D., Sunnydale was a permanent anomaly on my watch list. We noticed bizarre, fragmented reports that defied conventional logic. Unexplained deaths. Recurring cult activity. High-profile disappearances, and statistically impossible crime patterns masked by local authorities as 'gang activity' or PCP overdoses."
Willow nodded slowly, a look of sudden realization dawning on her face. "The Hellmouth effect. It bleeds into the system, even if the government tries to ignore it."
"Exactly," Peggy said. "It was a concentrated cluster of unexplained phenomena. So, a few months ago, I asked Jemma to perform a targeted extracorporeal excursion into this specific valley. I needed eyes on the ground that conventional intelligence couldn't provide. While she was actively surveying the Sunnydale perimeter..."
Peggy paused, looking between the two young women.
"...she suddenly encountered two minds unlike anything she had ever experienced in her life. The first was an ancient, fiercely tempered Slayer resonance—a warrior architecture woven directly into the soul. And right beside it, an enormous, brilliant, but completely untrained operant signature."
Willow’s breath hitched as she looked at Buffy. "That was us."
"That was you," Peggy confirmed softly. "Jemma didn't magically pull your names out of the ether. She found you because the anomalies surrounding Sunnydale brought us here, and your sheer presence broke through the local static like flares in the dark. And that, Buffy, is why I am sitting in your living room."
Joyce sat perfectly still in her armchair, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. She had scarcely moved throughout Peggy's account, listening with the focused silence of a mother weighing every implication.
"If you're taking Willow," Joyce said at last, her voice quiet but firm, "why aren't you taking my daughter as well?"
The room fell silent.
Buffy looked over in surprise.
"Mom..."
"No, Buffy."
Joyce didn't take her eyes off Peggy.
"You've spent the last hour explaining how dangerous this world is. You've told us there are people hunting children with these abilities. You said Jemma found both Willow and Buffy because they stood out so clearly. If Willow needs your protection..." Her voice tightened. "...then surely Buffy does too."
Peggy met her gaze without hesitation. There was no trace of impatience, only the calm understanding of someone who had spent a lifetime answering impossible questions.
"I asked myself precisely the same question before I ever came to Sunnydale, Mrs. Summers."
That caught everyone off guard.
"I considered removing both girls."
Buffy's eyebrows shot upward.
"But after six months of observation," Peggy continued, "I concluded that doing so would be catastrophic."
Giles leaned forward.
"...Catastrophic?"
Peggy inclined her head.
"Because Buffy Summers cannot simply leave Sunnydale."
A long beat of silence settled over the room.
Then Peggy said the words almost matter-of-factly.
"She has to guard the Hellmouth."
Buffy's mouth fell open.
"You... know about the Hellmouth?"
"I do."
"You mean S.H.I.E.L.D. knows?"
A faint smile crossed Peggy's face.
"No."
She shook her head.
"S.H.I.E.L.D. does not. Margaret Carter does."
That answer seemed to surprise Giles even more than Buffy.
"For decades," Peggy continued, "I have tracked more than operants. Psychic phenomena are only one thread in a much larger tapestry. I monitor occult convergences, dimensional instabilities, anomalous statistical clusters, and locations where the ordinary laws governing our world begin to fail."
She looked toward Buffy.
"Sunnydale has occupied the top of that list for many years."
Joyce frowned.
"So you've known..."
"I know exactly what your daughter is."
Peggy's voice softened.
"I know the burden placed upon her. I know what she faces almost every night. And I know that, whether anyone thanks her or not, countless people wake up alive each morning because Buffy Summers did not."
Buffy lowered her eyes.
"If I took her to England," Peggy continued, "I could make her safer."
She paused.
"But I would make everyone else less safe."
Giles slowly removed his glasses.
"You've quantified the strategic cost."
"I have."
Peggy's expression hardened.
"The numbers are unequivocal. Remove the Slayer from the Hellmouth and the resulting instability becomes unacceptable. Whatever I might gain by protecting Buffy personally would be outweighed by the lives lost in her absence."
Silence settled over the room.
Finally Buffy let out a slow breath.
"So..."
She managed a tired half-smile.
"Willow gets psychic boarding school..."
She thumbed toward herself.
"...and I keep working the night shift."
Peggy returned the smile, though there was sadness behind it.
"I'm afraid the world still needs its Slayer exactly where she is."
Peggy paused, letting her gaze shift from Buffy over to Joyce, her posture remaining perfectly still.
"Which is why, as I explained to your daughter earlier, Mrs. Summers, she will be getting her own personal trainer who is due to arrive tomorrow."
Joyce looked between Peggy and Buffy, her brow furrowing slightly as she recalled the name from the earlier discussion. "This would be the Anne Remillard you mentioned? The one from the family in New Hamphire?"
"The very same," Peggy confirmed smoothly, her voice carrying that absolute, unyielding authority. "As I told Buffy and Mr. Giles when we first spoke of this, S.H.I.E.L.D. has no intention of disrupting her Slayer duties, and Mr. Giles will, of course, remain her Watcher to guide her operations here. But while he can train her body and her historical awareness, he cannot hide her mind from a global metapsychic dragnet. Anne Remillard can."
Giles nodded slowly, the initial defensive sting completely gone now that the tactical reality had fully sunk in. He adjusted his glasses, his tone shifting into one of quiet, professional cooperation. "Yes... quite. The Watchers' Council has centuries of records on the supernatural, Mrs. Summers, but this specific type of metapsychic tracking is entirely modern. Miss Remillard isn't here to replace our work or interfere with Buffy's duties. She is here to protect Buffy from a threat the Council has never had reason to study. "
Buffy let out a breath, her posture relaxing as she looked at her mother. "Yeah, Mom. It's like... Giles handles the vampires, and Anne handles the psychic radar. Nobody's stepping on anyone's toes. She's just putting a cloaking device on my brain so anyone looking for minds like mine comes up empty. "
Peggy leaned forward slightly, looking directly into Joyce’s eyes to give the mother the ultimate assurance.
"Anne understands the structural discipline required to govern a hyper-advanced neurology because her own lineage has lived under that exact, volatile burden for generations," Peggy explained. "She isn't a threat to the network of trust Buffy and Mr. Giles have built. She is the shield that ensures that trust can survive. Tomorrow, she arrives. And Buffy will begin learning how to become invisible to the minds that should never know she exists."
Silence lingered in the living room after Peggy's last words. No one seemed eager to break it.
Joyce rose quietly from her armchair, collecting the empty teacups and coffee mugs from the table with practiced ease.
"I think everyone could use a refill," she said softly.
No one objected.
The gentle domestic rhythm of running water, clinking porcelain, and the kettle beginning to boil briefly replaced discussions of psychic warfare and ancient destinies. Buffy automatically carried the tray back from the kitchen while Willow helped gather the remaining cups, grateful for something ordinary to do with her hands.
A few minutes later, everyone had settled back into their seats. Fresh tea steamed from Peggy's cup, Giles cradled a renewed measure of scotch, Joyce wrapped both hands around a mug of coffee, and Buffy dropped back onto the sofa with a can of cola.
The quiet felt different now. Less strained. More expectant.
"Okay," Buffy said, blowing across the top of her drink. "We've covered the whole secret psychic world domination... not domination... survival thing. But you keep throwing around words like Farsensor and Redactor like they're college majors. How many kinds of psychic are there?"
Peggy sets her cup down.
"More than most people realize."
Peggy set her cup down onto the saucer with a soft, clean click, her gaze sweeping over the expectant faces in the room.
"We classify metapsychic functioning into five primary categories, or faculties," Peggy explained, her tone effortlessly shifting into that of a precise, experienced instructor. "While every operant possesses a unique neural signature, their abilities will invariably align with one or more of these disciplines."
Willow leaned forward, her notepad instantly appearing on her knee, pen poised as she prepared to absorb the data.
"The first is Farsensing," Peggy said, inclining her head slightly toward Willow, then mentioning Jemma. "As you've gathered, it encompasses telepathy, remote viewing, and long-range spatial awareness. At its lower levels, it is reading thoughts or sensing a presence. At the Grand Master tier, it allows for the kind of extracorporeal excursion Jemma can execute—projecting the conscious intellect across vast distances independent of the body."
Peggy paused, her eyes narrowing slightly as she looked at the young witch. "But a demonstration is always more instructive than pure theory, isn't it, Willow?"
Peggy turned her gaze toward the sofa. "Buffy, if you would be so kind. Take a piece of paper from Willow's notepad and write a short sentence down on it. Do not let me see it, and do not say it aloud."
Buffy looked skeptical, but she pulled a clean scrap of paper from Willow’s pad. She turned slightly, shielding the page with her hand, and scribbled a quick sentence.
"Done," Buffy said, folding the paper in half.
"Excellent. Now, hand it directly to Willow," Peggy instructed. "Willow, unfold it and read it to yourself. Keep the words entirely in your head."
Willow took the paper, her fingers trembling slightly with nervous excitement. She unfolded it, her eyes scanning Buffy's sharp handwriting. She memorized the sentence, then folded the paper closed.
Without looking away from Peggy, Willow reached out with her mind, searching for the cool, disciplined neural signature she had learned to recognize during the drive from the school. The familiar architecture revealed itself almost immediately.
Willow locked onto it and gently projected the thought across the link.
Miss Carter, she sent privately. Buffy wrote: "I bet she can't guess I want a double cheeseburger right now."
Peggy's expression didn't change. She simply set her teacup down with a soft click and turned toward Buffy.
"You wrote," she said evenly, "'I bet she can't guess I want a double cheeseburger right now.'"
Buffy’s jaw dropped, her eyes widening in absolute shock. "Oh, come on! You didn't just read her mind, you read my bad attitude!"
"I didn't read your mind, Buffy. Willow sent it to me," Peggy corrected smoothly, her eyes remaining fixed on the Slayer. "And that is precisely the point. There was no spell. There was no ritual. To anyone equipped with the appropriate metapsychic faculties, that exchange would have been as audible as the two of you speaking aloud."
"And Redaction?" Giles asked, his academic curiosity thoroughly piqued as he leaned forward, redirecting the focus to the next discipline. "You mentioned that both Claire and Jemma possess it."
"Redaction is the faculty of the mind that deals with emotional, psychological, and physiological manipulation," Peggy replied smoothly. "A Master Redactor can heal psychic trauma, alleviate mental static, or unblock latent faculties—as I did with Claire. Conversely, a hostile Redactor can wipe memories, rewrite personalities, or hollow out a mind entirely to turn it into a compliance mechanism. It is essentially the power of mental architecture."
Peggy studied Giles for a moment, noting the faint tension around his eyes, the rigid set of his shoulders, and the almost imperceptible tremor in the hand resting against his glass.
"You're carrying rather more strain than is healthy, Mr. Giles," she said gently. "Permit me a very small demonstration."
Before Giles could answer, Peggy remained perfectly still.
Yet the constant background pressure in Giles's mind simply faded away. The endless cascade of contingency plans, unresolved worries, and accumulated fatigue quieted as though someone had lowered the volume on thoughts that had been shouting for years. His memories remained untouched. His personality remained entirely his own. The burdens were still there. They simply no longer pressed against him with quite the same relentless weight.
Giles blinked several times, then let out a slow breath.
"Remarkable," he murmured. "I still remember every concern... but they no longer feel as though they're crushing me."
Peggy inclined her head.
"Exactly. What I have done is minor. I merely eased a little accumulated mental strain and allowed your own mind to settle back into its natural equilibrium."
Her expression grew considerably colder.
" A Master Redactor can do vastly more. We can repair psychological trauma, strengthen damaged cognitive pathways, ease debilitating fear, restore damaged memory, or unblock dormant faculties without disturbing the individual beneath them. "
She paused.
"Or, if one's intentions are less charitable, erase memories, manufacture loyalties, suppress conscience, dismantle identity, and rebuild a human mind into whatever shape one desires."
The room became noticeably quieter.
"What you just experienced," Peggy said evenly, " is the metapsychic equivalent of a physician treating a tension headache. It should not be mistaken for the full scope of the discipline."
Buffy watched Giles closely, her eyes tracking the sudden, visible relaxation in his posture.
"Giles? You okay? You look like you just had a full-body massage... but, you know, just for your brain."
"I am... quite well, Buffy," Giles said, his voice carrying a calm, steady resonance that had been missing for some time. He looked down at his scotch glass, then back up at Peggy with profound professional respect. "In fact, I don't believe my thoughts have been this orderly since I arrived in California."
Willow's pen flew across her notepad, her eyes bright with excitement as she tried to capture every detail.
"So Farsensing is perception and communication," she said. "Redaction governs the mind's internal architecture. It's like... Farsensing is the phone line, and Redaction is the operating system."
Peggy smiled faintly.
"An apt analogy, Willow."
She let the comparison settle before continuing.
"The remaining three faculties govern very different aspects of operant function. One interacts with matter. One interacts with will. And one interacts with imagination itself."
Peggy folded her hands neatly in her lap.
"Psychokinesis concerns matter," she said. "It is the faculty by which an operant directly interacts with the physical world through metapsychic force rather than muscular effort."
Willow's pen resumed its frantic pace.
"So... telekinesis?"
"Telekinesis is merely the most familiar expression," Peggy replied. "At its most basic level, a psychokinetic can nudge a pencil, open a door, or steady a trembling hand. As one's operancy develops, the scope broadens considerably."
She glanced toward the coffee table.
"A sufficiently advanced psychokinetic can manipulate objects weighing several tons, arrest momentum, reinforce fragile structures, or exert force with surgical precision."
Buffy raised an eyebrow.
"So... flying cars?"
"A vulgar but not entirely inaccurate simplification."
Buffy grinned.
"I'll take it."
Peggy allowed herself the faintest smile before continuing.
"Unlike Farsensing or Redaction, Psychokinesis does not act upon the mind. It acts upon the physical universe. It is governed by discipline, concentration, and an intuitive understanding of force. A careless psychokinetic is every bit as dangerous as someone waving a loaded firearm."
Giles nodded thoughtfully.
"So the limitation isn't imagination. It's control."
"Precisely."
Peggy reached for her teacup.
Without touching it.
The porcelain cup rose smoothly from its saucer, not with the jerky hesitation of an object being pulled by invisible strings, but with the effortless stability of something resting upon an unseen hand.
It drifted lazily around the room, passing between Joyce and Willow before circling behind Buffy's shoulder.
Buffy instinctively ducked.
"It isn't going to hit you," Peggy observed dryly.
"I know that."
"You ducked."
"...I had a moment."
The cup completed its gentle circuit before descending onto the coffee table.
Not a single drop of tea had spilled.
Willow stared.
"There wasn't any shaking."
"There shouldn't have been," Peggy replied. "A novice expends tremendous effort simply lifting an object. A Master Psychokinetic expends almost none. By that stage, maintaining perfect balance is no more difficult than extending one's arm."
Giles studied the teacup.
"You weren't merely lifting it. You were continuously calculating its mass, centre of gravity, momentum and equilibrium."
Peggy inclined her head.
"Exactly. Raw strength is the least interesting aspect of Psychokinesis. Precision is what separates a Master from an amateur."
Peggy allowed the teacup to settle gently back onto its saucer before folding her hands once more.
"Coercion," she said, "is perhaps the most ethically perilous of the five faculties."
The lightness that had briefly entered the room disappeared.
"It concerns neither matter nor memory. It concerns will."
Giles's expression grew thoughtful.
"The ability to compel."
"Precisely."
Peggy looked around the room, ensuring she held everyone's attention.
"At its most benign, a Coercer can steady panic, calm irrational fear, or help a traumatised mind regain enough composure to think clearly. Used responsibly, it has saved countless lives during disasters, hostage situations, and battlefield evacuations."
She paused.
"The difficulty is that the same faculty is equally capable of achieving far darker ends."
Willow slowly lowered her pen.
"You mean... mind control."
Peggy shook her head.
"That phrase is rather imprecise."
She spoke almost clinically.
"A skilled Coercer does not usually seize control of another person's body. Instead, they influence judgment itself."
Buffy frowned.
"So... they make people do things?"
"They make people believe the decision was their own."
The room fell silent.
Peggy continued.
"A suggestion becomes an inclination. An inclination becomes a certainty. A certainty becomes action."
Giles's brow furrowed.
"And the victim?"
"Frequently never realises another mind was involved."
Willow swallowed.
"That's... horrifying."
"It is why the Galactic Milieu places extraordinarily strict ethical constraints upon its use."
Peggy's expression hardened.
"A hostile Coercer can compel confessions, manufacture loyalty, suppress resistance, incite violence, or convince an entirely innocent person that they willingly chose to betray everything they value."
Buffy folded her arms.
"So how do you know if it's happening?"
"You don't."
That answer landed with uncomfortable weight.
"You learn to recognise inconsistencies after the fact. You build mental discipline. You rely upon trusted companions to notice changes in your behaviour."
She glanced briefly at Giles.
"And if the coercion is sufficiently subtle, even those safeguards may fail."
Joyce looked deeply unsettled.
"So anyone with this ability could simply... walk into a government office and tell people what to do?"
"They could try."
Peggy's tone remained matter-of-fact.
"The strongest minds resist. Trained operants resist more effectively still. No faculty is without limits."
She let that reassurance settle before adding one final thought.
"But if Redaction is the ability to rebuild a mind..."
Her gaze swept across the room.
"...Coercion is the ability to steer one."
Buffy let out a short, incredulous scoff, leaning back against the sofa cushions. "Okay, so if some creepy psychic walks up to me and tries to make me do something completely out of character, my brain is just going to follow along like a happy little robot? I don't think so."
Peggy didn't argue. Instead, she quietly set her teacup back down onto the saucer.
"Stand up, Buffy," Peggy said, her voice carrying a subtle, rhythmic weight.
Buffy blinked. She didn't want to get up, and she certainly hadn't intended to, but a sudden, natural inclination washed through her. It felt entirely like her own idea. She pushed herself off the sofa and stood in the center of the living room, looking around with a faint trace of confusion. "Okay. Standing. Now what?"
"Touch your toes."
Without a second thought, Buffy bent forward smoothly, touching the tips of her sneakers before straightening back up. It felt like a completely normal thing to do. "Great. I'm flexible. Next?"
"Jump in the air."
Buffy hopped a few inches off the rug, landing lightly on her feet. She smiled a little, entirely unaware that her movements were being dictated from across the room. "Are we doing a gym class routine now, or is there an actual point to this?"
Peggy held up a hand, signaling her to stop. She waited a beat, ensuring the room was completely quiet, before she looked Buffy directly in the eyes.
"Now," Peggy said, her voice dropping into a flat, entirely neutral register. "Take your top off."
Buffy froze.
The seamless, natural flow of compliance shattered instantly. A violent wave of cognitive dissonance slammed into her mind, breaking the subtle psychic grip like brittle glass. Her expression hardened, her arms crossing tightly over her chest as her Slayer instincts flared with a sharp, defensive edge.
"Miss Carter!" Giles barked, slamming his scotch glass down onto the side table as he stood up, his face flushing crimson with a mix of academic outrage and pure British propriety. "That is entirely inappropriate!"
"Excuse me?" Joyce said at the exact same moment, her protective maternal instincts flaring instantly as she leaned forward in her armchair, her expression hardening. "I think that is quite enough. I don't care who you work for, you do not come into my home and ask my daughter to—"
"Mom, Giles, it's fine," Buffy interrupted, her eyes locked onto Peggy with a wary, razor-sharp focus. "Because I'm not doing it. The ride just stopped."
Peggy didn't look offended. In fact, the faint, disciplined smile returned to her face as she looked over at Joyce and Giles, gesturing for them to ease back.
"Relax, please. I have no intention of compromising your daughter's modesty," Peggy explained smoothly, her voice returning to its normal, comforting cadence. "I gave Buffy four consecutive commands using an active Coercive overlay. She followed the first three without a second thought because her brain perceived them as entirely harmless, everyday actions. But the moment I gave the fourth, she stopped dead in her tracks."
She turned her attention back to Buffy, who was still tracking her with guarded eyes.
"This is the fundamental limitation of Coercion," Peggy said, addressing the entire room. "No matter how powerful a Coercer is, there are hard, biological boundaries to what the faculty can achieve. Anything that feels inherently unnatural, dangerous, humiliating, or completely antithetical to the subject's deeply ingrained moral code is immediately flagged by the brain's survival mechanisms and discarded."
Giles slowly sat back down, adjusting his jacket, though his pulse was still visibly racing as he processed the display. "So... the mind protects itself from commands that violate its core identity."
"Precisely," Peggy nodded. "If a Coercer tells a dedicated soldier to turn around and shoot their own comrade, the subconscious mind breaks the connection instantly because the command causes profound cognitive dissonance. Coercion works through alignment, not absolute enslavement. It capitalises on existing doubt, subtle inclinations, and paths of least resistance. It cannot force you to become someone you fundamentally are not."
Joyce sat back slightly, her posture easing as the tension from the demonstration began to bleed out of the room. Wanting to move past the unsettling nature of mind manipulation, she looked across at Peggy and kept her voice practical.
"And the last one?" Joyce asked, wanting to move on.
"Creativity," Peggy replied, her focus shifting smoothly back to the final faculty on the list. "This is the discipline that governs artistic and structural manifestation. At its standard level, a Creative can project photorealistic illusions, alter sensory perceptions, or manipulate light and sound so flawlessly that the human eye cannot detect the deception."
Willow, who had been quietly processing the boundary lines of Coercion, quickly raised her pen to capture the details. "Illusions? Like a psychic hologram?"
"Very much like that, Willow, though far more sophisticated," Peggy explained, turning to look at her. "A Master Creative does not simply project an image into the air. They impress the illusion directly onto the sensory cortices of everyone in the vicinity. They can make you feel warmth from a fire that isn't there, or hear footsteps in an empty corridor."
Giles took a slow, thoughtful sip of his scotch, his academic instincts thoroughly tracking the description. "A complete distortion of objective reality, then. One could entirely cloak a physical space, or perhaps manufacture a phantom presence."
"Precisely," Peggy agreed, her expression turning serious. "In defensive operations, Creativity is invaluable for masking safehouses or creating tactical diversions. But in hostile hands, it is the ultimate tool of espionage and psychological warfare. It can make an army look like a handful of scouts, or make a trusted ally look like a mortal enemy."
Willow lowered her notepad slightly, her eyes bright with that irrepressible, dangerous spark of academic curiosity that always flared when she encountered a new frontier of the unknown. She looked at Peggy, her thumb nervously clicking the top of her pen.
"Could we... I mean, if it's not too much trouble or too draining," Willow hesitated, offering a small, hopeful smile. "Could we see a small demonstration? Just a little one? To see how the brain processes a psychic mirage versus a real sensory input?"
Peggy paused, a faint, indulgent amusement touching the corners of her mouth. She didn't say a word, nor did she break eye contact with the young witch.
Slowly, the ambient light in the living room began to shift.
The warm, orange glow from the fireplace didn't dim, but the air directly above the coffee table began to shimmer and cool, condensing into a localized, thick bank of grey fog. The mist swirled with unnatural precision, rapidly drawing inward until it solidified into a perfect, lifelike replica of an old, leather-bound volume—the very cover matching one of the rare demonology texts currently sitting on Giles's desk across the room.
Willow gasped, leaning down until her nose was inches from the spectral book. She could see the intricate, cracked texture of the ancient leather, the slight fraying along the spine, and even the faint glint of dust motes dancing across the gold-leaf lettering.
"Go ahead," Peggy said softly, her physical voice breaking the silence. "Touch it."
Willow reached out a trembling hand, her index finger brushing against the top corner of the book. She blinked in absolute astonishment. To her fingertips, the surface felt distinctly cool, slightly rough, and unmistakably solid. She could feel the hard edge of the cover pressing against her skin.
But as she applied even a fraction of actual pressure to lift it, her hand passed directly through the leather and wood like water, the entire illusion dissolving into a harmless puff of grey mist that scattered into the air before vanishing completely.
"Oh," Willow whispered, staring at her empty palm. "Wow. My finger told my brain it was solid. Like, 100% physically there. I felt the grain."
"Because I didn't create a physical book, Willow. I merely instructed the visual and tactile centers of your brain to register one," Peggy explained smoothly, leaning back and lifting her teacup once more. "A Master Creative works with the architecture of perception. If you believe the wall is solid, you will not attempt to walk through it. If you believe the room is burning, your body will trigger a panic response. That is the power of the fifth faculty. And tomorrow, you and Buffy will begin learning how to keep outside minds from rewriting your reality."
"Any questions?" Peggy asked, her gaze sweeping over the room one final time as the last traces of the psychic mist settled into nothingness.
The living room remained quiet for a long beat. Willow slowly capped her pen, her notepad filled with precise, dense columns of data, while Giles took a final, slow sip of his scotch. Buffy stayed leaning against the back of the sofa, looking entirely spent but no longer defensive.
"I think," Giles said, clearing his throat and setting his glass down onto the side table with absolute finality, "that our minds are quite full enough for one evening, Director Carter. The sheer scope of what we are dealing with... well, it requires a proper night's sleep to fully digest."
"Agreed," Joyce said gently, rising from her armchair and smoothing down her skirt. "Tomorrow is going to be a very long, very demanding day for both of these girls. I think it's time we all turned in."
Peggy inclined her head, a look of quiet satisfaction returning to her poised expression. "A wise assessment, Mrs. Summers. Rest is the first line of defense for any active neurology. Willow and I will take our leave."
Joyce paused, looking at the legendary director with a warm, hospitable frown. "Miss Carter, it’s late, and you’ve had a remarkably long journey. We have a perfectly comfortable guest room if you'd care to stay the night here."
Peggy offered a soft, genuinely appreciative smile, but shook her head. "Thank you, Mrs. Summers, that is incredibly kind. But Willow has already offered me a place to stay at her home for the evening. We've made the necessary arrangements."
Willow nodded quickly, clutching her notebook to her chest. "Yeah, my parents are out of town at a convention, so it's super quiet. Plenty of room."
Giles stood up, adjusting his tweed jacket and picking up his car keys from the mantle. "In that case, let me give you both a lift. Walking through Sunnydale at this hour is... statistically ill-advised, regardless of one's metapsychic capabilities."
"Much appreciated, Mr. Giles," Peggy said, stepping toward the door with her effortless, military poise.
Buffy watched them head out into the hallway, the heavy weight of tomorrow's training looming just past the sunrise, but for the first time all night, she felt a strange sense of grounding structure beneath her feet.
********
Willow lays in bed, replaying the day until exhaustion finally dulled the edges of it.
Just before sleep took her, she reached out—carefully, like touching a live wire through glass.
Good night, Miss Carter.
The answer came almost immediately, quiet and precise in her mind.
Peggy, please. “Miss Carter” makes me feel my age.
Good night, Peggy.
Good night, Willow. Sleep well.
The mental link faded seamlessly into the quiet dark of the bedroom. Willow pulled the blankets tighter around her shoulders, letting out a long, slow breath as her thoughts drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep.