Introduction
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| Welcome to the Hellmouth | Witch |
Luke’s teeth approach Buffy’s neck as she struggles. Suddenly he pulls away, hissing in pain, and grasping his smoking hand. It has been burned by the cross necklace which has slipped from Buffy’s jacket pocket. Buffy kicks him away and escapes from the mausoleum.
Buffy hears the growl of a vampire, and Willow scream. She finds Willow on the ground with the vampire on top of her. Buffy kicks the vampire off Willow, and it runs away. Buffy and Willow look around, and see two more vampires are dragging Xander across the cemetery.
“Xander!” cries Willow, and the vampires turn to look at her. Buffy appears behind them and punches one while kicking the other. She knocks them both away from Xander. She breaks a branch off a tree and uses it as a stake to kill one of the vampires. The second runs away.
Buffy looks around the cemetery. All the vampires have disappeared. Willows help Xander sit up. Buffy kneels beside Xander and asks what happened to Jesse. Willow doesn’t know. Xander says that he saw him being dragged away by that girl.
Buffy straightens up and looks around. She can’t see anything. “Jesse!” she whispers.
Giles walks along the library mezzanine, gathering books. “This world is older than any of you know. Contrary to popular mythology, it did not begin as a paradise. For untold eons demons walked the Earth. They made it their home, their Hell. But in time they lost their purchase on this reality. The way was made for mortal animals, for man. All that remains of the old ones are vestiges, certain magics, certain creatures…”
“And vampires,” says Buffy.
Xander is having a little trouble adjusting to the idea that vampires are real.
“Isn’t that what we saw last night?” asks Willow from her seat at the table.
Buffy is holding an ice pack against her elbow. “No. No, those weren’t vampires, those were just guys in thundering need of a facial. Or maybe they had rabies. It could have been rabies! And that guy turning to dust? Just a trick of light. That’s exactly what I said the first time I saw a vampire. Well, after I was done with the screaming part.”
“Oh, I need to sit down,” says Willow.
“You are sitting down,” says Buffy.
“Oh. Good for me.”
“So vampires are demons?” asks Xander.
“The books tell that the last demon to leave this reality fed off a human, mixed their blood. He was a human form possessed, infected by the demon’s soul.” Giles hands Xander an open book. “He bit another, and another, and so they walk the Earth, feeding. Killing some, mixing their blood with others to make more of their kind. Waiting for the animals to die out, and the old ones to return.”
Darla and Luke drag Jesse before the Master. He is not pleased to have only one offering.
“He’s a good one!” says Darla. “His blood is pure!”
The Master glares at Darla. “You’ve tasted it.” Darla drops her gaze away from him. “I’m your…faithful dog. You bring me scraps.”
Darla starts to apologise. The Master steps toward her. “I have waited. For three score years I have waited, while you come and go, I am stuck here, here in this house of…worship! My ascension is almost at hand. Pray that when it comes…” He grabs Darla by the neck. “…I’m in a better mood.”
“Master, forgive me!” pleads Darla. “We had more offerings, but there was trouble. A girl!”
“There was a girl,” says Luke. “She fought well, and she knew of our breed. It is possible that she may be…”
“…a Slayer!” says the Master.
Xander asks just what a Slayer is.
“For as long as there have been vampires, there’s been the Slayer,” says Giles. “One girl in all the world, a Chosen One—”
“He loves doing this part,” says Buffy.
Giles cuts to the short version. “All right. The Slayer hunts vampires, Buffy is the Slayer, don’t tell anyone. Well, I think that’s all the vampire information you need.”
Xander wants to know one more thing: “How do you kill them?”
“You don’t. I do,” says Buffy.
Xander doesn’t want to accept that. Jesse is his friend, he wants to help save him. Buffy tells him that Jesse is her responsibility. She was the one who let him be taken.
“That’s not true,” says Xander.
“If you hadn’t shown up they would have taken us, too,” says Willow. “Does anybody mind if I pass out?”
Buffy puts her hand on Willow’s shoulder. “Breathe.”
“Breathe,” says Willow.
“Breathe.” Buffy turns to Giles. “This big guy, Luke. He talked about an offering to the Master. Now, I don’t know what or who, but if they weren’t just feeding, then Jesse may still be alive. I’m going to find him.”
“This may be the dumb question,” says Willow, “but shouldn’t we call the police?” Giles doesn’t think it’s likely that they would be believed. “We don’t have to say vampires. We, we could just say that there’s…a bad man.”
“They couldn’t handle it even of they did show up,” says Buffy. “They’d only come with guns.”
“You have no idea where they took Jesse?” asks Giles.
“I looked around,” says Buffy, “but soon as they got clear of the graveyard, they could have just, foom!”
“They can fly?” asks Xander.
“They can drive,” says Buffy.
Willow doesn’t remember hearing a car. Giles suspects that the vampires went underground. Buffy agrees. The city’s sewer system will give them access to all of the town without having to risk exposure to the sun. She’d looked, but she didn’t see any access points near where Jesse disappeared.
Giles suggests going to the city Building Commission to get the sewer and tunnel plans, but they don’t have time. Willow knows another way.
“A Slayer!” says the Master. “Have you any proof?”
“Only that she fought me, and yet lives,” says Luke.
“Very nearly proof enough,” says the Master. “I can’t remember the last time that happened.”
Luke looks down in shame. “1843. Madrid. He caught me sleeping.”
“She mustn’t be allowed to interfere with the Harvest!”
“I would never let that happen!”
“Don’t worry about it,” says the Master. “I believe she’ll come to us. We have something she wants. If she is a Slayer, and this boy lives, she’ll try to save him.”
Luke smiles. “I thought you nothing more than a meal, boy.” He puts his hand on Jesse’s neck. “Congratulations! You’ve just been upgraded. To bait!”
Willow brings up the plans for Sunnydale’s infrastructure on the library’s computer screen. Giles is surprised to learn that this information is publicly available on line. Willow confesses that they aren’t really public. It seems that she accidentally stumbled across them one day while cracking into the city’s computer systems.
The plans show an electrical tunnel which runs under the graveyard, but no access to it.
Buffy is getting frustrated. Giles tells her she’s being too hard on herself. Buffy disagrees. “You’re the one that told me that I wasn’t prepared enough. Understatement! I thought I was on top of everything, and then that monster, Luke, came out of nowhere…” Buffy stops, remembering how Luke grabbed her. “He didn’t come out of nowhere. He came from behind me. I was facing the entrance, he came from behind me, and he didn’t follow me out. The access to the tunnels is in the mausoleum! The girl must have doubled back with Jesse after I got out! God! I am so mentally challenged!”
“So, what’s the plan?” asks Xander. “We saddle up, right?”
“There’s no ‘we,’ okay?” says Buffy. “I’m the Slayer, and you’re not. This is deeply dangerous.”
Xander is not happy to hear this. “I’m inadequate. That’s fine. I’m less than a man.”
Willow isn’t anxious to go charging off into danger, but she does want to help.
Giles suggests that she can help him. “I’ve been researching this Harvest affair. It seems to be some sort of pre-ordained massacre. Rivers of blood, Hell on Earth, quite charmless. I’m a bit fuzzy, however, on the details. It may be that you can wrest some information from that dread machine.” Everyone just looks at him, waiting for a translation of his last statement. “That was a bit British, wasn’t it? I want you to go on the net.”
“Oh, sure, I can do that.” Willow turns back to the computer, and starts to type.
“Then I’m out of here,” says Buffy. “If Jesse’s alive, I’ll bring him back.” She starts toward the library doors.
“Do I have to tell you to be careful?” asks Giles.
Buffy stops and looks back at him briefly before she goes.
Buffy is headed for the school gate when Principal Flutie intercepts her. He wants to know where she thinks she’s going. “We’re not leaving school grounds, are we? Because if we were leaving school grounds on our second day of a new school, after getting kicked out of our old school for delinquent behaviour… Do you see where I’m going with this?”
Buffy tries to make an excuse about Mr. Giles sending her to get a book from the store, but Flutie doesn’t buy it. He closes and locks the gate. “Nobody leaves campus while school’s in session. Are we clear?”
“We’re clear,” says Buffy.
“That’s the Buffy Summers I want in my school,” says Flutie. “Sensible girl with her feet on the ground!”
Buffy watches him leave. As soon as he’s out of sight she jumps over the ten foot high fence. She clears it without touching it.
Xander and Willow walk down the hall discussing the sorts of things her computer search should be looking for: murder, death, disaster, earthquake, flood, rain of toads.
“Rain of toads!” says Xander. “Do you think they’d have anything like that in the paper?”
“I’ll put it on the computer search,” says Willow. “If it’s in there, it’ll turn up. Anything that’ll lead us to vampires.”
“And I, in the mean time, will help by standing around like an idiot.”
“Not like an idiot,” says Willow, “just…standing. Buffy doesn’t want you getting hurt. I don’t want you getting hurt.”
“This is just too much,” says Xander. “I mean, yesterday my life’s like, ‘Oh, oh, pop quiz.’ Today it’s ‘Rain of Toads.’”
“I know,” says Willow, “And everyone else thinks it’s just a normal day.”
“Nobody knows,” says Xander. “It’s like we’ve got this big secret.”
“We do,” says Willow. “That’s what a secret is, when you know something other guys don’t.”
“Right,” says Xander. The bell rings. “Look, maybe you should get to class.”
“You mean ‘we,’” says Willow. “We should get to class. Buffy’ll be okay. Whatever’s down there, I think she can handle it.”
“Yeah, I do, too.” Xander doesn’t look like he believes it.
Willow isn’t any more convinced. “So do I!”
Buffy arrives in the mausoleum. At the back she finds a gate secured by chains and a padlock. She also notices that she isn’t alone. Someone steps out of the shadows behind her. It is the strange man from last night. Buffy doesn’t turn around. She asks if he has the key.
“They really don’t like me dropping in.”
Buffy turns to face him. “Why not?”
“They really don’t like me.”
“How could that possibly be?”
“I knew you’d figure out this entryway sooner or later.” He shrugs. “Actually, I thought it was going to be a little sooner.”
“Sorry you had to wait,” says Buffy. “Okay. Look, if you’re going to be popping up with this cryptic wise man act on a regular basis, can you at least tell me your name?”
“Angel.”
Buffy thinks that’s a pretty name. She turns toward the gate. He warns her that she shouldn’t be putting herself at risk right now. The Harvest is tonight, and if she can’t stop it, the Master will walk the earth once more.
Buffy turns back to face him. “Well, if this Harvest thing is such a suckfest, why don’t you stop it?”
“’Cause I’m afraid,” says Angel. Buffy just looks at him. She spins around and kicks open the doors to the tunnel. “They’ll be expecting you.”
“I’ve got a friend down there,” says Buffy, “Or at least a potential friend. Do you know what it’s like to have a friend?” Angel doesn’t have an answer to that one. He says nothing. “That wasn’t supposed to be a stumper.”
Angel tells Buffy to head east toward the school once she gets into the tunnels. That’s where she is likely to find them.
“Going to wish me luck?” asks Buffy. Angel says nothing. Buffy turns and disappears into the tunnel.
“Good luck.” whispers Angel.
Buffy descends into the tunnel. At first the only things she sees or hears are the rats. She makes her way slowly through the tunnel in the direction Angel indicated. She hears something behind her, and spins around. It’s Xander, he’s followed her.
Buffy tries to send Xander away but he refuses to go. Jesse’s his friend. Besides it’s this or chemistry class. Buffy reluctantly lets him accompany her.
Buffy tells Xander about the various ways to fight vampires as they make their way through the tunnels. Crosses and garlic will repel them. Holy water will burn them. A stake through the heart, fire, beheading, and sunlight will kill them.
Xander hasn’t actually brought any of those things with him, so Buffy hands him a cross.
“Well, the part of my brain that would tell me to bring that stuff is still busy telling me not to come down here. I have this, though.” Xander turns on a flashlight.
“Turn that off!” says Buffy.
Xander quickly turns off his flashlight, and they continue down the tunnel in darkness only relieved by an occasional utility light.
“You’ve done some beheading in your time?” asks Xander.
“Oh, yeah,” says Buffy. “There was this time I was pinned down by this guy that played left tackle for varsity—well, at least he used to before he was a vampire—anyway, he had this really, really thick neck, and all I had was a little, little Exact-O knife…” Xander lets out a bit of a nervous laugh. “You’re not loving this story.”
“No, actually, I find it oddly comforting.”
Giles’ research begins to bear fruit. “From out of the crescent moon, the first past the solstice it will come…” he reads from one of his books. He consults his calendar. “Of course. That’s tonight!” 1
Cordelia and Harmony are working on their assignment in the computer lab, and talking about going to the Bronze.
“You should have been there last night,” says Cordelia. “’Cause I ran into Buffy, and can she be any weirder? She attacked me! Do you believe it?”
Harmony is looking at her computer screen. “I think we did this part wrong.”
“Why do we have to devise these programs, isn’t that what nerds are for?” Cordelia looks across at Willow who’s also working on one of the lab’s computers. “What’s she doing?” she whispers.
Harmony takes a peek over Willow’s shoulder. She’s looking at a web page about earthquakes. “Uh, she’s doing something else.”
Cordelia returns to her story about Buffy in the Bronze. “So anyway, I come out of the bathroom, and she comes running at me. Screaming! With a stick! ‘I’m gonna kill you! I’m gonna kill you!’ I swear!”
“Who?” asks the guy beside Cordy.
“Buffy!”
“The new girl,” says Harmony.
“What’s her deal?” asks the guy.
“Well, she’s crazed,” says Cordy.
“Did you hear about her old school?” asks Harmony. Cordy and the guy shake their heads. “Booted.”
“Well, I exhibit no surprise,” says Cordelia.
“Why was she kicked out?” asks they guy.
“Because she’s a psycho looney!” says Cordelia.
“No, she’s not!” says Willow.
“What?” Cordelia is surprised that Willow would dare to contradict her.
“She’s not a psycho,” says Willow. “You don’t even know her.”
“Excuse me?” asks Cordy. “Who gave you permission to exist? Do I horn in on your private discussions? No. Why? Because you’re boring.”
Willow turns away form Cordelia and Harmony. She has finished her work, and goes to the printer to collect the results. Cordy wonders aloud how to save what she has been doing.
“Deliver,” says Willow as she leaves the room.
Cordy examines her keyboard wondering how to “Deliver” and spots the “Del” key. She presses it. Her work vanishes.
Buffy tells Xander that they are getting close.
“How can you tell?”
“No more rats,” says Buffy.
Buffy and Xander see Jesse chained up in the tunnel ahead of them. He jumps to his feet brandishing a pipe until he recognises Xander. Xander asks him if he’s okay.
Jesse grabs Xander and hugs him. “I am not okay, on an epic scale.”
Buffy takes the pipe and shines Xander’s flashlight on the shackle around Jesse’s ankle. Xander tells Jesse that everything will be okay. “It’s cool, Buffy’s a superhero.”
Buffy uses the pipe to break the lock on the shackle. It makes a loud clanging noise.
“Do you think anyone heard that?” asks Xander.
They start to notice movement in the shadows, and start back along the tunnel the way they came in. Jesse tells them that they knew she’d be coming. He was supposed to be the bait. Xander isn’t happy to hear that.
They find that their escape route has been blocked by vampires. “Oops!” says Buffy. She asks Jesse if he knows another way out. He might. Jesse leads them to a side tunnel that he says the vampires brought him in through. The tunnel leads them into a dead end room.
“We can’t fight our way out through those things!” says Xander. “What do we do?”
“I’ve got an idea,” says Jesse. “You can die!” Jesse is a vampire.
“Jesse, man. I’m sorry,” says Xander.
“Sorry? I feel good, Xander! I feel strong! I’m connected, man, to everything! I can hear the worms in the earth!”
“That’s a plus,” says Xander.
Buffy struggles with the metal door to the room they are in, trying to close it before the vampires following them can catch up. The hinges have rusted, jamming the door open.
“I know what the Master wants,” says Jesse. “I’ll serve his purpose. That means you die. And I feed.” He steps toward Xander.
Buffy tells Xander to use the cross. He holds it up, and Jesse steps back. “Jesse, man. We’re buds, don’t you remember?”
“You’re like a shadow to me now,” snarls Jesse.
“You get out of my face,” says Xander.
Jesse bats the cross aside, and throws Xander against the wall of the room.
Buffy leaves the door that she hasn’t been able to close, and grabs Jesse. She throws him out into the tunnel at the group of vampires who are coming down it toward them. They all fall to the tunnel floor.
Buffy asks Xander for help, and together they get the door closed before the vampires manage to get back to their feet and attack them. Buffy bolts the door, and they both lean their backs against it while the vampires beat on the other side. Buffy doesn’t think they can hold it long.
Xander turns on his flashlight and shines it around. He spots a grate in the ceiling. Buffy pulls it open revealing an air vent big enough for them to crawl through. Xander goes first, with Buffy right behind him. The vampires break through the door, and follow them up into the vent.
The vent leads them to a ladder up to a manhole. Xander climbs out and turns to help Buffy.
A vampire grabs Buffy’s leg as she climbs out the manhole and tries to pull her back. Buffy manages to pull her leg up into the sunlight with some help from Xander. As soon as the light hits the vampire’s hand it starts to smoke and it releases her.
The Master is not pleased to learn that the Slayer has escaped their trap, but he is not greatly worried by it. She won’t be able to stop the Harvest, and it means that there will be someone worthy to kill once he reaches the surface. He is informed that Luke is ready for the ritual.
There is one other thing the Master has to do. “Ah, Colin,” he tells the vampire who has delivered the news of the Slayer’s escape. “You failed me. Tell me you’re sorry.”
“I’m sorry!” says Colin.
“There. That wasn’t so bad, was it?” asks the Master. Colin turns to go. “Hold on…” The Master raises a finger. Colin turns back to him. The Master’s hand flashes out. “You’ve got something in your eye.”
Giles hears someone enter the library. He looks up from his books. “Buffy?”
It isn’t Buffy, it’s Willow. She asks if there’s any word on them.
Giles doesn’t have any. They are both worried, and try to distract themselves with their work. Willow has the results of her research. Sixty years ago—just before the big earthquake which destroyed half the town in 1937—there had been a series of murders in Sunnydale. The M.O. had vampire written all over it. Lots of necks torn out, and bodies drained of blood.
Giles has a mixed reaction. “It’s all coming together. I rather wish it weren’t.”
The Master and Luke perform a ritual in his lair. The Master holds out his hand to Luke. Luke kisses it, and the Master turns his hand over, exposing his wrist. Luke bites into it, and drinks the Master’s blood.
“My blood is your blood!” proclaims the Master. “My soul is your soul!”
“My body is your instrument,” says Luke.
“On this, most hallowed night, we are as one.” The Master dips his thumb in the blood from his wrist and draws a three pointed star on Luke’s forehead. “Luke is the Vessel! Every soul he takes will feed me! And their souls will grant me the strength to free myself! Tonight I shall walk the Earth, and the stars themselves will hide!”
Buffy and Xander return to the library with the news that they were too late to save Jesse.
Xander kicks a recycling bin in frustration. “I don’t like vampires. I’m going to take a stand and say they’re not good.”
“So, Giles!” says Buffy. “Got anything that can make this day any worse?”
Giles puts down a marker on the ledge of a whiteboard on which he and Willow have been keeping notes. “How about the end of the world?”
“Knew I could count on you,” says Buffy.
Giles and Willow tell Buffy and Xander that Sunnydale exists on top of the Hellmouth, a sort of portal between this reality and the next. Sixty years ago the Master came to Sunnydale because he hoped to open it, and bring back the demons. Something went wrong, and there was an earthquake which swallowed half the town, including the Master. The Master became trapped in the Hellmouth, unable to escape from it.
Once a century comes the night of the Harvest. On that night the Master can draw power from one of his minions while it feeds. Enough power to allow him to break free from the Hellmouth, and open it.
Giles goes to the whiteboard and picks up the marker. “The minion is called the Vessel, and he bears this symbol.” He draws a three pointed star.
“So, I dust anyone sporting that symbol, and no Harvest,” says Buffy.
“Simply put, yes,” says Giles.
Buffy asks just where this Harvest is supposed to take place, but Giles hasn’t been able to figure that out. Xander figures that the likeliest place is the Bronze, with all its tasty young morsels. At least that’s where he figures Jesse will be.
Giles grabs his coat and they head out of the library. They don’t have much time, the sun will be setting soon.
“I got to make a stop,” says Buffy. “Won’t take long.”
“What for?” asks Giles.
“Supplies.”
Buffy gets dressed for action in her room. She is just putting on an old battered leather jacket when her mother comes in.
Joyce is surprised to see Buffy getting ready to go out, and she didn’t hear Buffy come home last night. “It’s happening again, isn’t it? I got a call from your new principal. Says you missed some classes today? We haven’t finished unpacking, and I’m getting calls from the principal!”
“Mom, I promise, It is not going to be like before,” says Buffy. “But I have to go.”
“No.”
“Mom!”
“The tapes all say I should get used to saying it. No!”
“This is really, really important.”
“I know.” Joyce rests her hands on Buffy’s shoulders. “If you don’t go out it’ll be the end of the world. Everything is life or death when you’re a sixteen year old girl.”
Buffy tries to object, but her mother isn’t listening. Buffy isn’t going out tonight. She can come down for dinner, or she can stay and sulk in her room. Joyce leaves Buffy alone.
Buffy doesn’t sulk. She pulls a trunk out of her closet and opens it. On the top is a bunch of girl type things: a stuffed tiger, bits of lace, pink note paper. She removes the top tray revealing the things beneath: her Slayer arsenal. Buffy loads a gym bag with stakes, crosses and jars of holy water.
Buffy takes one more stake out of her trunk, and slides it up the sleave of her jacket. She leaves through her window.
Cordelia is holding court again on the balcony in the Bronze, telling her friends why she only dates seniors. Younger boys are like children. “Y’know? Like Jesse. Did you see him last night, following me around like a little puppy dog.” Seniors have something that the younger boys just don’t have: cars.
A new song starts to play. “Oh, I love this song! Come on!” Cordy leads her friends down to the dance floor, and starts to dance.
Jesse watches Cordelia dance from the shadows.
The song ends and Cordy leaves the dance floor. She finds Jesse blocking her path. She asks him what he wants.
Jesse doesn’t say anything. He just grabs Cordelia’s hand and drags her out onto the dance floor again.
“Hey, caveman brain!” asks Cordelia. “What are you doing?”
“Shut up!” Jesse holds Cordy and starts to dance.
Cordelia seems to like this new Jesse better. “Well, just one dance.”
The doorman stands by the entrance to the Bronze, counting money. He’s a big guy, who looks like a muscle builder. He doesn’t see Darla come prancing out of the shadows, followed by Luke, and four other vampires.
The doorman notices when Darla and a couple of other vampires walk past him. He doesn’t look up at them. “Need I.D.” The vampires just keep going. “Hey! Nobody gets inside unless I get some sort of—” The doorman looks up finds himself face to face with Luke.
Luke growls. “Get inside.”
Another vampire grabs the doorman and pushes him through the door.
The vampires close and lock the front door. One stays to guard it and the others spread out, covering all the exits. Luke heads for the stage while another goes up to the balcony to take control of the lighting and sound systems.
The people are all surprised when the music stops and most of the lights go out.
Luke takes the stage. “Ladies and Gentlemen! There is no cause for alarm.” A spotlight comes on, shining on his demonic face. “Actually, there is cause for alarm. It just won’t do any good.”
Cordy turns to Jesse, who is now wearing his vampire face. She gasps.
Luke’s first victim is brought to him. It’s the doorman. With the horrified crowd looking on, Luke bares his fangs. “Watch me people!” He holds the struggling doorman. “Fear is like an elixir. It’s almost like blood!” Luke sinks his fangs into the doorman’s neck.
Below in his lair the Master feels his strength begin to grow.
Luke finishes feeding and drops the doorman’s body onto the stage. “Next!”
Buffy, Willow, Xander and Giles arrive at the Bronze and find the door locked.
“We’re too late!” says Giles.
“I didn’t know I was going to get grounded!” says Buffy.
Xander asks if Buffy can break the door down, but it’s too solid. She hands her weapons bag over to Willow and tells the others to try the back door. She’ll find another way in. “You get the exit cleared and the people out. That’s all! Don’t go Wild Bunch on me.”
“See you inside, then,” says Giles.
When Willow, Xander and Giles reach the back door they find it’s locked too.
“We’ve got to get in there before Jesse does something stupider that usual!” says Xander.
Giles turns away from the door to look at Xander. “You listen to me! Jesse is dead! You have to remember that when you see him, you’re not looking at your friend. You’re looking at the thing that killed him!”
Luke finishes off another victim. This one’s a girl. The Master can feel his power growing. He’s almost free.
Darla comes and takes Cordelia away from Jesse. All kills tonight are for the Master. Jesse is a little put out that he doesn’t get any.
Buffy breaks through a second story window onto Bronze’s balcony. She looks down at the stage and sees Luke bearing the mark of the Vessel. The vampire running the spotlight notices that it has company.
“I feel him rising!” says Luke on the stage below Buffy. “Tonight is his ascension! Tonight will be History at its end! Yours is a glorious sacrifice! Degradation most holy!” He looks around at the cowering crowd. “What, no volunteers?”
Darla drags Cordelia onto the stage. “Here’s a pretty one!”
Luke grabs Cordelia, and twists her head aside to expose her neck. Cordy screams.
Luke is interrupted by the sound of a thud from overhead. He looks up and sees the vampire from the balcony falling toward him. It lands at his feet.
Buffy leans over the railing and looks down at Luke. “Oh, I’m sorry, were you in the middle of something?”
“You!” says Luke.
“You didn’t think I’d miss this, did you?” asks Buffy.
“I hoped you’d come,” says Luke.
“Be right down!” Buffy does a flip over the balcony railing down onto one of the Bronze’s pool tables. She grabs a pool cue off the table as she does a cartwheel down to the floor.
One of the vampires rushes Buffy from behind, and she stakes it with the pool cue without even looking back. She shrugs off her jacket. “Okay vessel boy. You want blood?”
“I want yours.” Luke releases Cordelia. “Only yours.”
“Works for me!” Buffy does a cartwheel up onto the stage, and kicks Luke in the face. He’s knocked back into a pile of chairs. He slowly gets back to his feet and attacks her. She blocks him, and comes back with a quick series of kicks and punches. She pulls out her stake, and plunges it toward Luke’s heart. Luke blocks her, and Buffy’s stake falls to the floor. He tosses Buffy across the stage into a pile of boxes.
Giles manages to break open the back door. He, Xander and Willow start trying to move people out quietly. Xander looks toward the stage and sees Buffy picking herself up out of the boxes.
One of the vampires grabs Xander. Buffy sees them and pulls a cymbal off the drum set on the stage. She frisbees it toward Xander and the vampire. Xander sees the cymbal coming and ducks. The vampire gets decapitated.
“Heads up,” says Xander as its body turns to dust.
The distraction allows Luke grab Buffy from behind, pinning her arms down by her side. He lifts her feet off the stage.
Cordelia has fallen back into Jesse’s clutches. He isn’t going to wait any more. He wants to eat now.
Xander appears behind Jesse with a stake. “Jesse, man! Don’t make me do it.”
Jesse looks back at Xander. “Buddy!”
Buffy struggles against Luke’s hold on her, but she can’t escape.
“I always wanted to kill a Slayer!” says Luke. Buffy goes limp.
It is taking too long to get everyone out the back door, so Giles heads for the front to open that door too. He’s jumped by Darla.
“Jesse!” says Xander. “I know there’s still a part of you in there.”
Jesse lets go of Cordelia and turns to face Xander. “Okay, let’s deal with this. Jesse was an excruciating loser who couldn’t get a date with anyone in the sighted community! Look at me. I’m a new man!”
Luke’s teeth move toward Buffy’s neck. “Master! Taste of this, and be free!”
Buffy flings back her head, and smashes Luke in the face. He drops her and stumbles back. “How’d it taste?” she asks.
Giles struggles with Darla on the floor.
Willow reaches into Buffy’s bag of weapons and pulls out a jar of holy water. “Get off of him!”
Darla turns to look at her and Willow splashes the holy water into her face. Darla screams and runs from the Bronze, holding her smoking face.
Xander holds up his stake in front of Jesse, but Jesse knows that he isn’t ready to use it. A girl trying to escape the Bronze bumps into Jesse’s back, and pushes him onto the stake. Jesse dusts.
Buffy picks up the cymbal stand from the drum set and brandishes it before her.
Luke isn’t worried. “You forget, metal can’t hurt me!”
“There’s something you forgot about, too. Sunrise!” Buffy throws the stand past Luke, through the painted over window behind him. Yellow light comes streaming in.
Luke covers his face to protect it from the light and screams in fear. Buffy picks up the stake she had dropped earlier.
Luke is surprised. The sunlight isn’t burning him. He lowers his hands and looks out the window. The light is coming from a streetlight outside. The realization comes to him too late as Buffy plunges her stake into his back. “It’s in about nine hours, moron.” Luke falls to the floor and vanishes in an explosion of dust.
The Master feels Luke die. With him goes all the new strength that he had accumulated. He had been so close to freedom but now he is trapped again. He collapses in anguish.
Buffy looks up and sees two vampires dragging Xander away. They take one look at her, and they let go of him and run from the Bronze.
The fleeing vampires pass Angel, who is standing in the shadows outside the Bronze. “She did it,” he says. “I’ll be damned.”
Everyone has left the Bronze except for Buffy and her friends. They gather up their stuff and prepare to go themselves.
Xander hands Buffy her jacket. “One thing’s for sure. Nothing will ever be the same.”
Buffy overhears Cordelia talking with a friend at school on Monday morning. She’s telling her about what happened at the Bronze on Friday night. Cordy has heard that it was rival gangs fighting for turf. The freakiest thing was that Buffy knew them. Cordy’s friend is disappointed that she missed it.
Xander has been eavesdropping on the conversation too and is somewhat bemused by their reaction.
“What exactly were you expecting?” asks Buffy.
“I don’t know, something,” says Xander. “I mean, the dead rose. We should at least have an assembly.”
They move across the courtyard, and join Willow and Giles on the concourse. Buffy and Giles aren’t surprised by Cordy’s reaction. They have seen this sort of thing before. “People have a tendency to rationalize what they can, and forget what they can’t,” says Giles.
“Well, I’ll never forget it. None of it,” says Willow.
“Good!” says Giles. “Next time you’ll be prepared.”
Xander and Willow are surprised to learn that Giles thinks there’ll be a next time. He warns them that it isn’t just vampires that are attracted to Sunnydale, and the Master will continue trying to escape. “We may in fact stand between the Earth, and its total destruction.”
“Well, I got to look on the bright side,” says Buffy. “Maybe I can still get kicked out of school!”
“Oh, yeah, that’s a plan,” says Xander, “’Cause lots of schools aren’t on Hellmouths.”
“Maybe you could blow something up,” suggests Willow. “They’re really strict about that.”
“I was thinking of a more subtle approach, y’know,” says Buffy. “Like excessive not studying.”
Buffy and her friends walk away, leaving Giles behind, watching them go. “The Earth is doomed!”
| Who or What | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| A vampire | The cemetery | Staked by Buffy |
| Jesse | The Master’s lair | Killed and vamped by the Master |
| Bronze doorman | The Bronze | Killed by Luke |
| A girl | The Bronze | Killed by Luke |
| A vampire | The Bronze | Staked with a pool cue by Buffy |
| A vampire | The Bronze | Decapitated with a cymbal by Buffy |
| The vampire Luke | The Bronze | Staked by Buffy |
| The vampire Jesse | The Bronze | Staked by Xander |