Introduction
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| Nightmares | Prophecy Girl |
It’s springtime at Sunnydale High. Cordelia walks down the hall with Harmony and her current boyfriend Mitch, who has his arm around Cordy’s shoulder. She really likes this time of year. The end of school is fast approaching, and the end of school dance. She’s starting to gear up for the May Queen campaign.
They start to walk past the library. Buffy comes running out the door and collides with Mitch. She drops her bag, and its contents spill out onto the floor.
“Behold the weirdness,” says Cordelia as Buffy quickly starts to gather up her things: stakes, a cross, a mace.
Buffy tries to make up an excuse for the stuff: show and tell for History class. She needn’t have bothered. Cordelia and her friends aren’t interested in Buffy’s explanations.
“She is always hanging with that creepy librarian in that creepy library,” says Harmony.
“Hey, did I ever tell you about the time that she attacked me?” Cordy asks Mitch as they walk away from Buffy. “At the Bronze? I don’t know why this school admits mentals like her.”
Buffy watches them go.
“If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh?” reads Mrs. Miller from The Merchant of Venice in English class. She asks the class how this relates to their discussion of the anger of the outcast in society.
Cordelia has a very Cordeliaesque take on the play. She sees Shylock as totally self obsessed. “With Shylock it’s whine, whine, whine, like the whole world is about him. He acts like it’s justice, him getting a pound of Antonio’s flesh. It’s not justice, it’s yicky.”
“But has Shylock suffered?” asks Mrs. Miller. “What’s his place in Venice society?”
“Well, everyone looked down on him,” says Willow.
Cordy isn’t buying it. “That is such a twinkie defense. Shylock should get over himself. People who think their problems are so huge craze me. Like this time I sort of ran over this girl on her bike. It was the most traumatising event of my life, and she’s trying to make it about her leg! Like my pain meant nothing!”
The bell rings ending the class. Mrs. Miller tells the students they will pick up the discussion some other time. The class all starts to leave, but Cordelia stays behind. She wants to talk to Mrs. Miller about her final paper. Mrs. Miller makes an appointment with her for after school the next day.
Mitch comes out of the showers and starts to get dressed. One of the guys asks him if he’s going to be meeting them at the Bronze tonight. Mitch has to pick up his tux first. “Gotta look sharp for the big dig.”
“Oh, that’s right!” says one of the guys. “You gotta look good to be on Cordelia’s arm!”
“Oh, it’s not her arm I’m lookin’ to be on,” says Mitch. All the guys laugh.
Everyone but Mitch has finished dressing, and they leave him alone in the locker room. He hears the sound of a girl giggling, and looks around. He doesn’t see anyone. He continues getting dressed, and he hears the giggle again.
“Okay, fun time’s over, come out.” Mitch reaches for his baseball bat, which is lying on top of the lockers. He doesn’t reach it. Before he can grab it the bat picks itself up. It begins to strike him, over and over.
Cordelia walks down the school hallway, handing out chocolates with a “C” for Cordelia on them as part of her May Queen campaign. “This way people will associate me with something sweet!” she tells Harmony. She starts to hand a candy to the next student in the hall, but she sees it’s Buffy and pulls it back. “Oh. I don’t think I need the looney-fringe vote.” She continues down the hall.
“Well, I don’t even like chocolates,” says Buffy to Cordelia’s departing back. “Okay, that was the lamest comeback of our times,” she tells herself.
Buffy is joined by Willow and Xander. Xander wants to know what Cordelia is up to.
“Bribery,” says Buffy. “She’s desperate to be May Queen.”
Willow and Xander have lots of experience with Cordelia’s quest for titles. “Oh, god!” laughs Willow. “Remember in sixth grade with the field trip?”
“Right!” Xander starts to laugh. “The guy with the antlers on his belt!”
Willow deepens her voice. “Be my deputy!”
“And remember the hat?” asks Xander.
“Oh god! The hat!” laughs Willow.
Buffy looks back and forth between them without comprehension. “Gee, it’s fun that we’re speaking in tongues.”
Willow and Xander calm down a bit and apologise. It was one of those things where you just had to be there to appreciate it.
“Uh, Cordelia just has a history of trying too hard,” says Willow.
“Yeah, what kind of moron would want to be May Queen anyway?” asks Xander.
Buffy turns away and starts putting things into her locker. “I was.”
“You what?” asks Xander.
“At my old school,” says Buffy.
“Oh! So the good kind of moron would do that. The, uh, non-moron, I mean.”
Buffy finishes up in her locker and turns back to him. “Well, we didn’t call it ‘May Queen,’ but we had the coronation, and the dance, and all that stuff. It was nice.”
“Well you don’t need that anymore,” says Xander, “You’ve got us.”
Willow starts giggling again. “Be my deputy!” That sets Xander off too. Buffy looks at them, feeling left out.
They stop when a guy comes running down the hall. “Guys, come on! Mitch got wailed on! I think he’s—”
“Dead?” Principal Snyder asks the students gathering outside the locker room. “Of course not. What are you? Ghouls?” He turns away from them and looks down the hall to where the paramedics are wheeling Mitch out on a gurney. “There are no dead students here…this week.” He tells the students to make room for the paramedics to get past.
The medics wheel Mitch past Buffy. She asks him what happened.
“I don’t know,” says Mitch. “I heard something. I tried to grab a bat, but…it hit me.”
“What hit you?” asks Buffy.
“The bat!” says Mitch. “By itself, the thing was floating, it knocked me out.”
The paramedics take Mitch away. Buffy wants to take a look at the scene, and starts toward the locker room doors. Principal Snyder stops her. Buffy tries to make up an excuse about Mitch wanting her to get his comb, but Snyder doesn’t buy it. Mitch doesn’t need his comb, he needs medical attention. “And you need to stay away from the crime scene. Always sticking your nose in.”
“Sue!” says Willow loudly. “What did you say? Mitch was going to sue the school?”
That gets Snyder’s attention. He turns away from Buffy to find out about this new crisis. “Sue? Who?”
Buffy mouths a “Thank you!” to Willow and ducks into the locker room.
“Well, his dad is the most powerful lawyer in Sunnydale,” says Xander.
“Hold on. What have you two heard?” asks Snyder.
“His dad, the lawyer,” says Xander. “You haven’t heard of him?”
“Other lawyers call him ‘The Beast.’” says Willow.
Buffy looks around in the locker room. She finds the bat, lying on the floor with blood on it. Nearby a group of four lockers all have their doors open. Buffy starts to look in one of them, and notices something on the front of its door. The letter “O” has been spray painted onto it in red. She closes the other doors. Each has a letter painted on it, spelling out “LOOK.”
Buffy tells Willow and Xander about what she found as they eat their lunches in the cafeteria. None of them has any idea what the “LOOK” might mean. Buffy is pretty sure it’s a message of some sort. “And monsters don’t usually send messages,” she tells them. “It’s pretty much ‘crush, kill, destroy.’ This was different.”
Giles comes into the cafeteria. He has a bit of a nervous look around to make sure no one is close enough to overhear before he joins into the discussion. He doesn’t know what it could be either. “I’ve never actually heard of anyone being attacked by a lone baseball bat before.”
“Maybe it’s a vampire bat,” says Xander. Everyone just looks at him. “I’m alone with that one, huh?”
Giles does have a few ideas about what could have done it: the bat itself may have been possessed, someone with telekineses, an invisible creature of some kind, or a poltergeist.
“A ghost?” ask Willow.
“Yes, and a very angry one,” says Giles.
Buffy suggests that Willow compiling a list of all the recently dead or missing kids would be a good place to start. Giles will start researching the other possibilities. He asks Xander to help him.
“What, so there’s homework now?” asks Xander. “When did that happen?”
“It’s all part of the glamorous world of vampire slayage,” says Buffy.
Xander isn’t happy with his part. He wants to know what Buffy is going to be doing. She tells Xander that she’s going to be trying to learn all she can about Mitch. Xander thinks that he wants that part of the job.
“Fine,” says Buffy, “you can do it. Ask around, talk to his friends. Talk to Cordelia!”
Suddenly researching with Giles sounds like a much better option to Xander.
Harmony finds Cordelia on the balcony overlooking the school courtyard. She had missed Cordy in fifth period.
Cordy tells Harmony that she went to the hospital to visit Mitch. “You should’ve seen him lying there. All black and blue. How’s he going to look in our Prom pictures? How am I ever going to be able to show them to anyone?”
“Well, they can do wonderful things with airbrushes these days,” says Harmony.
“You think?” asks Cordy.
Flashback—
Cordelia and Harmony stand on the balcony talking about how Cordelia may start dating Mitch in the spring, if he makes the varsity baseball team. A third girl tries to join the conversation but Cordy blows her off.
Cordelia and Harmony are at the top of the stairs when Buffy finds them. She tells Cordy she wants to talk to her. Cordelia does not look like she wants to talk to Buffy.
Neither does Harmony. “Why is she always trying—”
Something pushes Harmony, knocking her down the stairs. Buffy, Cordelia and several other students run down the stairs after her.
Harmony lands at the bottom of the stairs, right in front of Principal Snyder. Several more students gather round.
“Oh, for heaven sakes! Clear back, everyone!” orders Snyder. “Give her some air!” He sends one of the students to get the school nurse.
Harmony sits up and feels her ankle. She tells them that she thinks it’s broken.
“What happened?” asks Buffy.
“Hey! Who’s the principal here?” asks Snyder. He turns back to Harmony. “What happened?”
“She fell!” says Cordelia. “We were standing at the top of the stairs and she just fell! All by herself!”
“No!” says Harmony. “I was pushed!”
Buffy hears a girl laugh, and footsteps going up the stairs. She looks, but sees nothing. She gets up and follows the sound.
Snyder leans down and feels Harmony’s ankle. “Ow!” she yells.
Snyder pulls his hand away quickly. “Don’t sue!”
Buffy sees a door closing when she gets to the top of the stairs. She goes through it, into an anteroom to the school’s band room. She looks around but she doesn’t see anything. She hears more footsteps and something she can’t see bumps into her.
Buffy follows the sound into the band room. “Okay, I know someone’s here. Look, I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to talk to you.”
Buffy looks around the room, but she doesn’t see anyone. She doesn’t notice one of the corner ceiling tiles sliding quietly back into place.
A couple of men in dark suits watch the students as they leave school for the day. One of them takes notes on a pad of paper.
Buffy walks out of the school with Willow, Xander, and Giles. She asks Giles what it’s like to touch a ghost.
“From what I’ve heard, having a ghost pass through you is a singular experience,” says Giles. “It’s a rather cold amorphous feeling. It makes your hair stand on end.”
This confirms Buffy’s suspicion. Whatever bumped into her was solid. They are not dealing with a ghost. Judging by her laugh, it was a girl.
“A girl on campus with the ability to become invisible,” says Giles.
“That is so cool!” says Xander.
“Cool?” asks Willow.
“Well, yeah,” says Xander. “I would give anything to be able to turn invisible. Well, I wouldn’t use my power to beat people up. I’d use my power to protect the girls’ locker room.”
Giles agrees that having the ability to become invisible must be a fairly heady experience, but they still have the problem of finding and dealing with her.
Willow asks if the girl could be a witch, “’Cause we can fight a witch.”
Xander doesn’t think so. “Greek myths speak of cloaks of invisibility, but they’re usually for the gods.” Everyone looks at him in surprise. “Research boy comes through with the knowledge!”
Buffy thinks that whatever they are dealing with seems to be a little petty to be a god.1 And why would a god attack Harmony?
“Harmony and Mitch,” says Xander. “The common denominator is—”
“Cordelia!” says Buffy.
Buffy asks Willow to get that list of missing kids. Willow promises to have it for her in the morning, and she and Xander leave. Xander invites Willow to come to his place for dinner. His mom is making her famous phone call to the Chinese takeout place.
“Xander, do you guys even have a stove?” asks Willow.
Buffy stays behind with Giles. He’s going to start looking into ways to de-cloak an invisible someone. Buffy plans to start her hunt. Cordelia is going to be getting the finishing touches put on her May Queen dress in the school tonight. Buffy wants to keep an eye on her.
“How exactly do you propose to hunt someone you can’t see?” asks Giles. “You may have to work on listening to people.”
“Very funny,” says Buffy.
“I thought so.”
Buffy walks the deserted hallways of the school. She pauses outside the room where Cordelia is trying on her dress with several of her friends helping to adjust the hem. They are laughing and talking about the upcoming dance. Buffy looks in through the window in the door.
Buffy turns away from the door. She hears the sound of a flute playing.
Giles is in the library. He hears the flute too. He looks around, but it soon stops. He walks back into the stacks carrying some books, and he hears a creaking noise.
Giles looks around. “Who’s there?” He sees nothing and gets no response. He continues back into the stacks.
Giles pauses in front of an enclosed bookcase, and looks at its glass doors. All he sees is his own reflection, and the reflection of the books on the shelves behind him. He turns away and is startled to see Angel standing beside him. He takes a quick look back at glass doors. He only sees himself, and books. “A vampire casts no reflection.”
“Don’t worry,” says Angel. “I’m not here to eat.”
Giles asks if Angel’s there to see Buffy, but he isn’t. It’s too painful for both of them.
“A vampire in love with a Slayer,” says Giles. “It’s rather poetic, in a maudlin sort of way.” He wants to know what Angel wants.
Angel tells Giles that the Master is up to something, but he has no idea what. He was hoping that Giles might have a clue.
Giles can’t help much. He has been studying everything he can about the Master, but he hasn’t learned much. “I’ve studied all the extant volumes, of course. But the most salient books of Slayer prophecy have been lost. The Tiberius Manifesto, the Pergamum Codex—”
“The Codex?” asks Angel.
“It’s reputed to have contained the most complete prophecies about the Slayer’s role in the end years. Unfortunately, the book was lost in the 15th century.”
“Not lost,” says Angel, “Misplaced. I can get it.”
Giles looks at him in surprise. Having the Codex would be most helpful. His own volumes have been rather useless lately.
Angel looks down at the book in Giles’ hands. “Legends of Vishnu?”
Giles tells Angel about the invisible girl terrorizing the school. That is a little outside Angel’s area of expertise. It’s outside Giles’ area too. “It’s fascinating, though, by all accounts it’s a wonderful power to possess.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Angel looks at his lack of reflection in the glass. “Looking in the mirror everyday and seeing nothing there. It’s an overrated pleasure.”
Flashback—
A plain looking girl is checking her hair in the washroom mirror when Cordy and some of her friends come in. Cordelia and the others are talking about the alumni lecture they have just been forced to sit through. Two of the most boring hours they have ever experienced.
The girl tries to join into the conversation. “And did you guys see his toupee? I mean, it looks like a cabbage.”
Cordelia ignores her. “And those slides! ‘That’s a mountain. That’s a mountain, too. Now look at some mountains.’”
“I swear!” says Harmony, “He had three slides and just used them over and over.”
“I know,” says the girl, “but did you guys see his toupee? I mean, it was, like, the worst!”
“We’re talking, okay?” says Harmony.
“Oh!” says Cordelia, “And did you guys check out that extreme toupee? Yeah, that’s realistic. It looked like a cabbage.” Cordelia’s friends all laugh.
Buffy is in the courtyard watching the announcement that Cordelia has been chosen as the school’s May Queen next morning. Xander and Willow track her down there. Willow notices two men in dark suits who seem to be watching Cordelia too, and wonders if Cordy has hired herself some bodyguards.
Willow has the list of the students who have disappeared recently. One of them was Marcie Ross. Her only listed activity was band, where she played the flute. Buffy tells them about hearing flute music last night, and after Harmony got knocked down the stairs she followed the invisible girl to the band room.
Buffy decides to go check out the band room again.
Buffy notices a dusty footprint on a chair in the band room. The arrangement of the chair, a table and some equipment shelves make it easy to climb up to the ceiling where the corner tile isn’t quite in place. Buffy climbs up and pushes the loose tile aside. She climbs into the crawl space above the ceiling.
Buffy finds a nest in the crawl space. There’s a mattress and blankets, a flute and some sheet music is scattered around, a teddy bear and other stuff. She also finds a Sunnydale High yearbook. She opens it and looks inside the cover.
“‘Marcie Ross’” she reads. “So it is you.”
Buffy isn’t alone. A knife floats in the air behind her. Marcie doesn’t attack though. She lets Buffy take the yearbook and go.
Mrs. Miller is working at her desk. She hears someone enter the classroom and looks up, thinking that it’s Cordelia arriving late for their appointment. She looks around but there is no one there. She goes back to grading papers.
Mrs. Miller hears a giggle coming from behind her. She looks around again but she still doesn’t see anyone. Suddenly a plastic bag is pulled down over her head.
Cordelia arrives outside the classroom. She knocks on the door but there’s no answer. She opens the door to look inside, and she sees Mrs. Miller lying unconscious on her desk with the plastic bag over her head.
Cordy rushes in, and pulls the bag off Mrs. Miller’s head. She gasps for breath, and wakes up. Cordelia asks her what happened.
Still gasping, Mrs. Miller tells Cordy she was attacked, but she couldn’t see anything.
A piece of chalk lifts off the blackboard ledge. It starts to move across the board, and Cordy and Mrs. Miller turn when they hear it. The chalk writes “LISTEN” across the board.
Buffy tells Giles, Willow and Xander about Marcie’s nest, and shows them the yearbook. She opens the cover and slides it across to Willow.
Willow looks at what’s written there. “Oh my god! ‘Have a nice summer.’ ‘Have a nice summer.’ This girl had no friends at all.” The inside cover is full of the same inscription from everyone who signed it.
Giles is confused. “Once again I teeter at the precipice of the generation gap.”
“‘Have a nice summer’ is what you write if you have nothing to say,” explains Buffy.
“It’s the kiss of death,” says Xander.
Buffy asks if either Willow or Xander knew Marcie, but neither of them remembers her. Xander asks why she asked.
“’Cause you both wrote it, too.” Buffy points out Xander’s signature.
“Where am I?” asks Willow, and Buffy points her signature out too. “Oh. ‘Have a great summer.’ See, I cared!”
They still don’t remember Marcie. Xander suggests that maybe they just saw her to sign the yearbook. It’s a big school after all.
Willow has been checking Marcie’s transcripts. “Xander, we each had four classes with her last year!”
“So,” says Buffy. “No one noticed her, and now she’s invisible.”
Giles slaps the table. “Of course! I’ve been investigating the mystical causes of invisibility when I should have looked at the quantum mechanical!” Everyone just looks at him. “Physics.”
“I think I speak for everyone here when I say ‘Huh?’” says Buffy.
“It’s a rudimentary concept that reality is shaped, even created by our perception,” says Giles.
“And with the Hellmouth below us sending out mystical energy…” says Buffy.
“People perceived Marcie as invisible, and she became so,” says Giles.
Flashback—
There is a lively discussion going on between Mrs. Miller and the English class. All the students are participating: Xander, Willow and several others. Marcie keeps raising her hand, but she is never called on. She sees that her hand is starting to fade, becoming transparent.
“This isn’t some great power that she can control,” says Buffy. “It’s something that was done to her. That we did to her.”
“No wonder she’s miffed,” says Willow.
“What does she want?” asks Xander.
Buffy has been flipping through the pages of the yearbook. She has found a full page picture of Cordelia which has been defaced. Slashes have been drawn across her face, and a big red crown has been drawn on top of her head. “Just what we thought. Cordelia.”
Cordy is just coming through the library doors. “What?” She rushes toward the group at the table. “Buffy, I know we’ve had our differences, with you being so weird and all, and hanging out with these total losers. Well, anyway, despite all of that, I know that you share this feeling that we have for each other, deep down—”
“Nausea?” asks Willow.
Cordelia ignores her. “Somebody is after me! They just tried to kill Mrs. Miller, she was helping me with my homework. And Mitch! And Harmony! This is all about me! Me, me, me!”
“Wow!” says Xander. “For once she’s right!”
“So you come to me for help?” says Buffy.
Cordelia nods. “Because you’re always around when all this weird stuff is happening.2 And I know you’re very strong, and you’ve got all those weapons…I was kind of hoping you were in a gang.” Buffy is not thrilled by this ringing endorsement. “Please! I don’t have anyone else to turn to.”
Giles gets up and offers Cordelia a chair. He doesn’t recall ever seeing her in the library before.
“Oh, no,” says Cordy. “I have a life.”
Buffy pauses for a moment before she explains to Cordelia that she is being attacked by an invisible girl.
“Who is really, really angry at you,” says Xander. “Which I…can’t imagine personally, but it takes all kinds, y’know?”
Cordelia doesn’t care what it is. She just wants Buffy to get rid of it.
Buffy explains that it won’t be that simple. She points out Marcie’s picture in the yearbook—which is right beside Willow’s. “Do you have any idea why she’d be so—”
“God!” says Cordelia. “Is she really wearing Laura Ashley?”
“So homicidal?” asks Xander.
Cordelia has no idea. She says she has never seen this girl in her life.
Marcie mutters to herself as she gathers up supplies in her lair. “You won’t even see me coming, Cordelia. You don’t remember me. I remember you, all your idiot slut friends, I hate them. They take your life and they suck it out of you! But they won’t see me coming. They gotta learn. They gotta learn.”
The gang discusses things in the library. They now have two messages from Marcie. “LOOK” and “LISTEN” but they still have no idea what they mean. They know that Marcie seems to be wigging about the whole May Queen thing. Willow suspects that Marcie may be planning to stop the coronation tonight.
“Nothing is keeping me from the Bronze tonight!” says Cordelia.
“Can we just revel in your fabulous lack of priorities?” asks Xander.
Cordelia is adamant. “If I’m not crowned tonight then, then Marcie’s won! And that would be bad. She’s evil, okay? Way eviler than me.”
Buffy thinks that Cordelia has a point. And continuing the normal May Queen activities may be the best way to draw Marcie out. Cordelia can be the bait. Cordy doesn’t like the sound of that.
Giles asks Willow and Xander to keep researching to see if they can find a way to cure Marcie’s invisibility. If they can’t, Buffy is likely to be a sitting duck. None of them notice that Marcie is watching them from the stacks.
Buffy and Cordelia leave the library together. “Well, I have to try on my dress,” says Cordy. “And am I really bait?”
Buffy and Cordy walk through the hallway, talking about Marcie. “It’s awful to feel that lonely,” says Cordelia.
“So you’ve read something about the feeling?” asks Buffy.
“Hey!” says Cordelia. “You think I’m never lonely because I’m so cute and popular? I can be surrounded by people and be completely alone. It’s not like any of them really know me. I don’t even know if they like me half the time. People just want to be in the popular zone. Sometimes when I talk, everyone’s so busy agreeing with me, they don’t hear a word I say.”
“Well, if you feel so alone, then why do you work so hard at being popular?” asks Buffy.
“It beats being alone all by yourself.”
Willow, Xander and Giles hear flute music. They start to follow it, looking for the source.
Giles pauses outside the library. “We could talk to her. Perhaps reason with her. Or possibly grab her.”
“There are three of us,” says Willow.
“Let’s go!” says Xander.
Buffy takes Cordelia to a broom closet. She has a quick look around inside, but doesn’t see anything, and then goes to stand guard outside the door while Cordy changes.
Giles, Willow and Xander follow the sound of the flute music down into the basement. They try calling out for Marcie but they get no answer. They follow the sound into the boiler room.
At the back of the room Xander finds the source of the music: a tape machine. “Can you say ‘gulp?’”
The door slams shut behind them. They hear the sound of footsteps running away as they try to open it. They are locked inside. Giles hears a hissing sound in the room with them.
Buffy talks to Cordelia through the broom closet door as she stands guard. “You know what you were saying before? I understand. Somehow it doesn’t seem to matter how popular you are when—”
“You were popular?” asks Cordelia. “In what alternate universe?”
“In L.A.,” says Buffy. “The point is, I did sort of feel like something was missing.”
“Is that when you became weird and got kicked out?” asks Cordy.
“Okay. Can we have the heartfelt talk with a little less talk from you?” asks Buffy. She doesn’t get an answer. “Cordelia?”
Buffy hears the sound of a struggle and a muffled scream coming from inside the closet. She tries the door but finds it’s been locked from the inside.
Buffy punches through the door and reaches in to unlock it. She opens the door and rushes in, just in time to see Cordelia’s feet disappearing into the ceiling. Buffy jumps up, grabs a pipe and swings herself up into the ceiling after her.
Giles can smell gas. Marcie has snuffed out the boiler’s pilot light, and turned the gas up full. She has also broken off the shut off valve’s handle. Willow and Xander go back to trying to get the door open. Xander sees a metal bar and picks it up. He raises it to hit the metal door.
“No!” yells Giles. “One spark and you’ll take the whole building with us!”
Buffy finds Cordelia lying in Marcie’s nest. She feels Cordy’s wrist for a pulse. She’s still alive.
Marcie knocks Buffy off the platform onto some unsupported ceiling tiles. Buffy falls though, and lands on a desk in the room below, shattering it. The desk broke Buffy’s fall somewhat, but she’s still stunned.
Marcie drops her bag through the hole Buffy made in the ceiling and jumps down after it. She opens the bag and pulls out a syringe. Buffy is just starting to recover and sit up, when Marcie jabs the needle into her neck. Buffy passes out.
Buffy wakes up, tied in the May King’s throne in the Bronze.
Cordy is there and awake too, tied in the Queen’s throne. She tells Buffy that her face is numb. “What is she doing?”
“I don’t know,” says Buffy.
Written on the curtain near them is “LEARN.”
“What does that mean?” asks Cordy.
“I don’t know,” says Buffy.
Giles bloodies his hand trying to shut off the gas. He manages to get the valve partially closed, buying them a little more time.
“Why is Marcie doing this?” asks Willow.
“The loneliness, the constant exile,” says Giles. “She’s— She has gone mad!”
“Ya think?” asks Xander.
A cart—covered by a cloth—wheels up in front of Buffy and Cordelia. Marcie tells them that she’s disappointed. She had hoped that they would have figured it out by now.
Buffy asks her to explain it.
“Yeah?” asks Cordy. “What do you want to teach us?”
“You don’t get it,” says Marcie. “You’re not the student. You’re the lesson.”
“What did you do to my face?” asks Cordy.
“Your face,” says Marcie. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? Your beautiful face. That’s what makes you shine just a little bit brighter than the rest of us. We all want what you have. To be noticed, remembered. To be seen. I’m fulfilling your fondest wish.” She pulls the cloth off the cart, revealing a tray of surgical instruments. “I’m going to give you a face no one will ever forget.”
Giles and Xander wrap Giles’ coat around the end of the metal bar to suppress the sparks, and start to batter on the door with it. Willow is lying, nearly unconscious, on the floor.
“Marcie, you can’t do this,” says Buffy.
“What are you going to do?” Marcie picks up a knife from the tray. “Slay me?”
“Marcie, you know this is wrong,” says Buffy.
Marcie hits her. “You should have stayed out of my way! Y’know, I thought you would understand my vision, but you’re just like them.” Her knife swings around in front of Cordelia’s face.
Cordy pleads with her not to do it.
“You should be grateful,” says Marcie. “I mean, people who pass you in the street are going to remember you for the rest of their lives. Children are going to dream about you. And every one of your friends who comes to the coronation tonight will take the sight of the May Queen to their graves.”
Buffy struggles against the ropes tieing her arm to the arm of the chair. She manages to work her hand forward far enough for her finger tips to reach the edge of Marcie’s instrument tray. She pulls it a little closer.
Xander and Giles are now on the floor with Willow.
Marcie is anxious to get started on Cordelia before the anesthetic wears off. She doesn’t want Cordy fainting from the pain. She wants Cordy awake for this. She plans to start by widening Cordy’s smile.
Buffy manages to grasp a knife off Marcie’s tray, and starts to cut herself loose while Marcie is trying decide just where to make the first cut.
“Marcie, I know you think I don’t understand, but I do!” says Cordy.
“Yeah, I’ll bet you know how I feel,” says Marcie. “I’m sure you can just be with all your friends and feel so alone ’cause they don’t really know you. You’re just a typical, self-involved, spoiled little brat, and you think you can charm your way out of this, don’t you? Isn’t that what you think?” She slashes Cordy’s cheek with the knife.
Buffy finishes cutting her hand free, and kicks the instrument tray away from her, and into Marcie. It knocks her away from Cordelia. Buffy quickly frees her other hand, and slips out of the ropes tied around her shoulders. She goes to Cordelia and starts to untie her too, but she isn’t fast enough. Marcie comes back and knocks Buffy to the floor.
Giles is the only one still conscious in the boiler room. He weakly pounds against the door. The door opens. It’s Angel. He helps Giles, Willow and Xander out of the boiler room, where the fresh air quickly starts to revive them.
“What happened?” asks Xander.
“You tell me,” says Angel. He came in though the basement to bring Giles the Codex and smelled the gas. He sends them out of the basement while he goes back into the boiler room to shut off the gas. “It’s not like I need the oxygen.”
Buffy sits up. “Y’know, I really felt sorry for you. You’ve suffered. There’s one thing I really didn’t factor into all this. You’re a thundering looney!” She gets to her feet, but Marcie hits her again, knocking her feet out from under her.
Buffy staggers back to her feet and Marcie knocks her back into the May King’s chair, the chair falls over onto the floor. Cordelia is going hysterical.
Buffy pushes the chair away, and gets up again. She swings a punch at the air. It doesn’t hit anything.
“Hey, moron! I’m invisible!” Marcie knocks Buffy down again. “How are you going to fight someone you can’t see?”
Cordelia’s hysterics are getting worse as Buffy gets to her feet yet again.
“Cordelia, shut up!” says Buffy.
“Okay.” Cordelia shuts up.
Buffy stands still, closing her eyes and listening. She hears the creak of a floorboard behind her, spins around, and punches. This one connects. Marcie is sent flying into one of the curtains which falls down around her. Marcie struggles back to her feet, still covered by the curtain.
“I see you!” Buffy grabs the curtain, holding Marcie still for one good punch to her head. Marcie goes down and stays down.
The doors of the Bronze open, and the two dark suited men who have been hanging around the school burst in. “Everyone stay where you are!” They rush toward Buffy and Marcie with their guns drawn. “FBI! Nobody move!”
They signal for Buffy to back off, as one of them flashes his badge at her and identifies himself as Agent Doyle. His partner is Agent Manetti. They are there for the girl.
“Where were you ten minutes ago when she was playing surgeon?” asks Buffy.
Agent Manetti helps Marcie to her feet, still covered in the curtain. Doyle apologises for the delay, and says that they will take care of the girl.
“You can cure her?” asks Buffy.
“We can rehabilitate her,” says Doyle. They pass Marcie off to another agent who leads her out of the Bronze.
“In time she’ll learn to be a useful member of society again,” says Manetti.
“This isn’t the first time this has happened, is it?” asks Buffy. “It’s happened at other schools.”
Doyle and Manetti are not at liberty to discuss that. They suggest it would be best if Buffy forgets the entire incident.
“Do you know that you guys are very creepy?” asks Buffy.
Doyle thanks Buffy for her help, and turns to go.
“And, oh, have a nice day!” says Manetti.
“Can I get untied now?” asks Cordelia.
Buffy kneels beside Cordy, and starts to untie the ropes around her wrists.
Buffy and friends compare notes on their adventures the previous night as they walk toward the library. Buffy asks how they got out of the basement. Before either Willow or Xander can mention Angel, Giles tells her that the janitor found them.
Cordy shows up just as they reach the library doors. “I didn’t get a chance to say anything yesterday with the coronation and everything, but, um, I guess I just wanted to say thank you, all of you.”
“That’s funny,” says Xander, “because she looks like Cordelia.” Buffy gives him an elbow in the chest.
“You really helped me out yesterday, and you didn’t have to,” says Cordy, “So, thank you.”
Willow starts to invite Cordelia to join them for lunch when Mitch shows up. He’s still bruised, but he’s up and walking around. “Whoa. You’re not hanging with these losers, are you?”
Cordelia quickly reverts to her former self. “Are you kidding? I was just being charitable. Helping them with their fashion problems. You think I really felt like joining that social leper colony? Puh-lease!”
Buffy and her friends watch Cordelia and Mitch walk away down the hall together. “Boy, where’s an invisible girl when you really need one?” asks Xander.
Doyle and Manetti lead Marcie into a classroom. The only person visible there is the teacher, but several voices greet Marcie after the teacher introduces her to the class.
The teacher instructs the students to turn to page 54 of their texts. Pages turn in all the books on the desks. Marcie gets to page 54: Chapter 11: Assassination and Infiltration.
“Cool!” says Marcie.