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When She Was Bad

Prologue

Willow and Xander wander by one of Sunnydale’s cemeteries playing a game of Name The Movie. Xander’s eating an ice cream cone. They are running out of movie ideas. When Willow’s turn comes up again all she can think of is “Use the Force, Luke.” Xander doesn’t even bother giving the answer.

They stop walking, and Willow sits on the low wall beside the path while they continue to talk. It’s been a long boring summer, without any monsters and stuff. Xander is actually looking forward to school starting up again.

“Yeah, and that wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain girl we both know who is a Vampire Slayer?” asks Willow.

“Please,” says Xander. “I’m so over her. Did she, uh, mention when she might be getting back? About which I do not care.”

Willow hasn’t heard from Buffy lately. She got a couple of postcards from her after she left to spend the summer with her father in L.A. but since then, nothing.

Xander switches back to their game. “I got a movie for you!” He taps Willow’s nose with his icecream cone.

“Xander!” says Willow.

“You’re Amish!” says Xander. “You can’t fight back ’cause you’re Amish! I mock you with my ice cream cone, Amish guy!”

“Witness.” says Willow. “My nose is cold.”

“Let me get that for ya.” Xander leans forward to lick the icecream off her nose.

“Xander!” laughs Willow, and pushes him away.

“Sorry, I can’t help myself. Your nose looks so tasty.” Xander pulls out a napkin and wipes Willow’s nose clean. Once her nose is cleaned off, his hand goes up and gently strokes her hair. She starts to lean forward, her lips approaching his, and they nearly kiss. Before lip contact is made something causes them to pull back. There’s a vampire standing on the other side of the wall looking at them.

Willow screams and jumps off the wall. Xander tells her to run. He turns to face the vampire.

Willow doesn’t run. She stays and watches while Xander tries to fight the vampire. He hits it, but the vampire barely notices. It grabs Xander and pulls his neck in close so it can bite him.

Someone grabs the vampire and pulls it away from Xander. She kicks the vampire in the head, knees it in the stomach and flips it to the ground. Buffy turns and smiles at Willow and Xander. “Hi guys!”

The vampire gets back to its feet, and Buffy gives it a kick that propels it onto a dead branch of a nearby tree. The branch impales the vampire through its back. The vampire bursts into dust. Buffy turns back to Willow and Xander. “Miss me?”

Act I

Buffy exchanges hugs with her friends. She just got back into town. Her father drove her down from L.A. Willow and Xander are happy to see her, and her timing doesn’t suck either. Buffy thinks that they’ve been getting sloppy, letting the vamp sneak up on them like that. Neither one of them even has a cross with them.

“Well, it’s been a slow summer,” says Xander. “I mean, that’s the first vampire we’ve seen since you killed the Master.”

Buffy isn’t pleased to hear that. “It’s like they knew I was coming back.”

They start to walk together along the path, and Xander asks Buffy how her summer went. “Did you slay anything?”

Buffy’s summer has been as uneventful as theirs. Partying with her old friends in L.A. and a lot of shopping. Xander notes that she hasn’t lost her touch. She made quick work of that vampire.

Buffy asks if they had any fun over the summer.

“Yes!” says Willow.

“No!” says Xander.

Buffy looks back and forth between them, to see if they can get their stories straight.

Xander tells Buffy that their biggest excitement over the summer was helping Giles bury the Master. Willow points out the spot near a tree in the cemetery where they did it.

Buffy’s good mood vanishes. She follows Willow and Xander as they walk along the path, and keep talking, but she keeps looking back to where the Master was buried.

Buffy’s father Hank helps Joyce unpack Buffy’s stuff, while they talk about Buffy’s summer. Joyce notices that Buffy seems to have come home with a lot more clothing than she left with. The latest suitcase Hank has brought in is full of shoes. “How much shopping did you let her do?”

“I just thought I was saving you from the back to school clothing nightmare.”

Joyce’s nightmares about Buffy and school have nothing to do with clothes. She asks Hank if Buffy managed to stay out of trouble over the summer. He says she did, but he doesn’t sound very enthusiastic about it.

“But?” asks Joyce.

“She was just, I don’t know, distant,” says Hank. “Not brooding or sulking, just…there was no connection. The more time we spent together, the more I felt like she was nowhere to be seen.”

“Hence the shoes?” asks Joyce.

“I may have overcompensated a little bit. It’s so strange. You know, at least when she was burning stuff down I knew what to say.”

“Welcome to my world,” says Joyce. “I haven’t been able to get through to her for so long. I’ll just be happy if she makes it through the school year.”

On the first day back at school Cordelia tells a couple of her friends about her summer. Her parents took her to Tuscany, instead of St. Croix as they had originally promised her. “It was a total nightmare. Art and buildings? I was totally beachless for a month and a half.” Cordy figures she has suffered as no one has suffered before her. She knows that sort of thing is supposed to build character, but she already has lots of character.

Principal Snyder walks along the concourse with Giles. The first day back always gets to him. “One day the campus is completely bare, empty,” says Snyder. “The next, there are children everywhere. Like locusts. Crawling around, mindlessly bent on feeding and mating. Destroying everything in sight in their relentless, pointless desire to exist.”

“I do enjoy these pep talks,” says Giles. “Have you ever considered, given you abhorrence of children, school principal was not perhaps your true vocation?”

“Somebody’s got to keep an eye on them,” says Snyder. “They’re just a bunch of hormonal time bombs. Every time a pretty girl walks by every boy turns into a gibbering fool.”

Giles sees Jenny Calendar coming toward them. He stops paying any attention to Snyder, and stops to gibber a greeting to her. She smiles and tells him its good to see him. They walk off together toward the faculty lounge.

Snyder hasn’t noticed. “I try and tell ’em about the important things in life. Discipline, responsibility, punctuality. Might as well be talking to myself.”

Jenny and Giles enter the school. She tells him about going to Burning Man in Black Rock. She really enjoyed it. “They had drum rituals, mobile sculptures, raves, naked mud dances, you would’ve just…hated it with a fiery passion!”

“I can’t imagine finding any redeeming, uh… Naked?” asks Giles.

“You probably spent all summer with your nose in a book.”

“I suppose you’d consider that frightfully dull,” says Giles.

Jenny smiles. “Depends on the book.”

Willow, Xander and Buffy come down the stairs, and spot them. “Yo! G-man! what’s up?” asks Xander.

“Nice to see you,” says Giles, “And don’t ever call me that.” He asks Buffy how she is.

“Alive and kicking,” says Buffy.

“Buffy killed a vampire last night!” says Willow rather loudly. The others look around a little nervously to see any of the students passing by noticed.

“I think you can get a little more volume if you speak from the diaphragm,” says Buffy. Willow apologises, and they all step in a little closer to one another so they can talk about this quietly.

Jenny is a little surprised to learn that they still have vampires. She thought the Hellmouth was closed. Giles tells her it’s closed, but not gone. It is still putting out its mystical energy.

“Which means we are still the undead’s favourite party town,” says Xander.

Giles wonders if the vampire was there for any specific purpose. He had best consult his books.

Xander checks his watch. “Oh, eight minutes and thirty-three seconds, pay up.” Willow hands him a dollar. “I called ten minutes before you’d consult your books about something,” he explains to Giles.

The bell sounds and they all start to head off for class. Giles stops Buffy long enough to tell her that they should resume her training as soon as she’s ready. Buffy tells him she will drop by the library after classes.

Giles is a little surprised. He thought she would want a few days to settle in before they started.

“I’m ready,” says Buffy.

Buffy goes through her exercise routine in the library. She warms up with a gymnastics routine of flips and cartwheels, and moves on to some martial arts katas to work on her kicks and punches. Then they have a session with the quarterstaffs during which Buffy knocks the stuffing out of Giles.

Buffy finishes up with a session beating on a wooden punching dummy. When she looks at it she doesn’t see the dummy. She sees the Master.

Giles watches with growing concern as the force of Buffy’s attack on the dummy escalates. “Buffy, that’s enough!”

Buffy doesn’t stop. She keeps pounding on the dummy.

“Buffy!”

Buffy gives the dummy one last kick, and snaps it off at the base.

“It’s safe to say you’ve stayed in shape,” says Giles.

“I’m ready.” Buffy pushes her hair back from her face. “Whatever they’ve got coming next, I’m ready.”

The vampire Absalom addresses the vampires who have gathered in an abandoned factory on the outskirts of Sunnydale. “We have been put down, kinsmen. We have lost our way. We have lost the night. But despair is for the living. Where they are weak, we will be strong. Where they weep, we rejoice. Where they bleed, we drink!”

Absalom laughs. “Within three days a new hope will arise. We will put our faith in him.” He points to the Anointed One who is sitting watching him silently. “He will show us the way.”

Act II

Buffy sits daydreaming in the student lounge. She’s joined by Willow and Xander. Xander takes a seat on the sofa beside Buffy, while Willow sits across from them. Willow asks Buffy what she’s thinking about, and pulls an apple from her lunch bag. Buffy tells her it was nothing.

“Oh, c’mon, you can tell us,” says Xander. “We’re your bosom friends! The friends of your bosom!” He pulls a chocolate bar out of his bag.

“Xander!” say Willow.

Willow frowns at her apple, while Xander frowns at his chocolate bar. Without saying a word they both toss their snacks across to each other at the same time.

Buffy tells them that she really wasn’t thinking about anything.

Willow wants to know what Buffy did last night. Buffy tells her she slept. She had weird dreams.

“Dreams are meaningful,” says Xander.

“Tell me about it,” says Willow. “The other night I dreamt that Xander—” She stops, remembering that Xander is sitting right there. “Uh, It wasn’t Xander. In fact it wasn’t me. It was a friend’s dream, and she doesn’t remember it.”

Buffy smiles. “I bet she doesn’t.”

They’re interrupted by Giles, who needs to speak with Buffy. She gets up off the sofa to talk with him. Giles has been researching, and he thinks he knows what the vampires are up to. Buffy figures whatever it is, she can handle it.

“I hope it’s that simple,” says Giles.

“It is not to worry,” says Buffy. “Trust me.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” says Giles. “I mean, I’ve killed you once, it shouldn’t be too difficult to do it again.”

“What?” asks Buffy.

Giles knocks Buffy onto the table between Willow and Xander with a backhanded punch. He jumps on top of her and starts to strangle her. Xander and Willow stay in their seats, ignoring what’s happening. They munch away on their snacks and smile at each other.

Buffy reaches up and grabs at Giles’ hair. It comes loose in her hand, along with the mask which had been covering the Master’s face.

Buffy wakes up in her bed. She sits up and looks around her room. She’s alone. A few seconds later she looks back toward her window.

Angel has appeared, sitting on her window sill. “Mind if I come in?”

“Be my guest.”

Angel asks Buffy how she’s been.

“Peachy.” Buffy wonders what Angel’s doing there. It is kind of late for a social call. “Or, well, it is for me, anyway. What is it for you, lunch hour?”

“It’s not a social call,” says Angel.

Buffy guesses that means that there is grave danger. “Gosh, it’s good to be home. So some of your cousins are in town for a family barbecue, and we’re all on the menu!”

“The Anointed One,” says Angel. “He’s been gathering forces somewhere in town. I’m not sure why.”

Buffy thinks she’ll find out soon enough, and she could use a little action anyway.

Angel doesn’t think Buffy is taking this seriously enough. “Don’t underestimate the Anointed One just because he looks like a child. He has power over the rest of them. They’ll do anything for him.”

“Is that it? Is that everything? Y’know, ’cause you woke me up from a really good dream.” Buffy lies back down, and rolls over on her side, with her back to Angel.

“Sorry. I’ll go.” Angel pauses before he goes back out her window. “I missed you.”

Buffy doesn’t respond for several seconds. Finally she rolls back toward her window. “I missed you,” she says, but Angel has vanished.

Joyce drives Buffy to school next morning. Buffy sits silently looking out her side window.

“Is there the slightest chance that if I asked you what was wrong you would tell me?” asks Joyce. Buffy looks at her, but doesn’t say anything. “Course not. It would take the fun out of guessing.”

Buffy tells Willow and Xander about Angel’s visit, while getting her books out of her locker. Whatever’s up, she figures she can handle it. She closes her locker door and they start to walk off together down the hall.

Xander switches the subject. Cibo Matto is going to be playing at the Bronze tonight. He thinks they should all go.

“Cibo Matto?” asks Willow. “They’re playing?”

“No, Willow, they’re going to be clog dancing,” says Xander.

“Cibo Matto can clog dance?” Willow notices the look she’s getting from Xander. “Oh, sarcasm, right.”

“We should attend, no?” asks Xander.

They round a corner and meet Cordelia. “Oh look!” says Cordy. “It’s the Three Muskateers!”

Buffy’s a little confused. “Was that an insult?” she asks Willow and Xander.

“It kind of lacked punch,” says Xander.

“The Three Muskateers were cool.” Willow tells Cordelia.

“I see your point,” says Cordelia

“I would’ve gone with Stooges,” says Xander.

“Well, I just meant that you guys always hang out together,” says Cordy. “So, did you guys fight any demons this summer?”

“Uh, yes!” says Willow loudly. “Our own personal demons.” She looks around to see if anyone noticed what Cordy said.

“Uh, such as lust and, uh, thrift!” says Xander.

“I would have to go with Stooges also,” says Buffy.

Cordelia wants to know what they’re talking about. “I’m talking about big squiggly demons that came from the ground? Remember? Prom night? With all the vampires!”

“Cordelia,” says Buffy. “Your mouth is open and sound is coming from it. This is never good.”

Xander pulls Cordelia aside and tells her that they aren’t supposed to talk about stuff like that in public.

“You haven’t been talking about our little adventure all summer, have you?” asks Willow.

“Are you nuts?” asks Cordelia. “Do you think I would tell people that I spent the whole evening with you? Besides, it was all so creepy. That Master guy? And all the screaming? I don’t even like to think about it.” She turns and looks at Buffy. “So your secret’s safe with me.”

“Well, that works out great,” says Buffy. “You won’t tell anyone that I’m the Slayer, and I won’t tell anyone you’re a moron.” She walks off, leaving the other three behind.

Xander watches Buffy go. “Now, that was a good insult.”

“A little too good,” says Willow.

“What’s up with her?” asks Cordy.

Willow and Xander wait for Buffy in the Bronze. Willow thinks that there’s something wrong with Buffy. She has been acting different ever since she got back. Xander isn’t worried. Buffy’s always been different.

“She’s never been mean,” says Willow.

Xander looks around to see if he can spot Buffy, she hasn’t shown up yet. Willow takes advantage of his distraction to dab a little of the icecream she has been eating onto her nose.

Xander looks back at Willow. “You’ve got something on your nose.” He goes back to looking for Buffy.

Willow is disappointed. She picks up her napkin and wipes the icecream off her nose.

Absalom and the Anointed One order several of their vampires to start digging in the cemetery. There aren’t enough shovels for all of them, so Absalom directs some of the vampires to dig with their hands.

“The ground is consecrated,” complains one of the vampires. “It burns!”

“Dig!” says the Anointed One.

The vampire digs. He soon uncovers the Master’s skull.

Buffy walks into the Bronze, and removes her cloak. She’s wearing a slinky black mini-dress. The first person she meets is Angel. “So is there danger at the Bronze?” she asks. “Should I beware?”

Angel doesn’t understand the way Buffy’s acting. He wonders if there is something he’s done to make her angry with him. The feeling bothers him more than he likes.

“I’m not angry,” says Buffy. “I don’t know where that comes from.”

“What are you afraid of?” asks Angel. “Me? Us?”

“Could you contemplate getting over yourself for a second?” asks Buffy. “There’s no us. Look, Angel, I’m sorry if I was supposed to spend the summer mooning over you, but I didn’t. I moved on. To the living.”

Buffy turns away from Angel and walks over to Xander and Willow’s table. Xander stands up to greet her, and she hands him her cloak. He sets it aside on one of the stools at their table.

Willow asks Buffy what’s bothering Angel, but Buffy says she doesn’t know. She invites Xander to dance with her. She leads him out onto the dance floor.

Buffy dances with Xander, getting very up close and personal with him, while Willow and Angel watch them. Neither of them is pleased by what they are seeing.

Buffy turns her back to Xander, and pulls his arms around her while they dance. She slowly rubs herself against his body. Xander doesn’t seem to be enjoying this much either.

Buffy turns around, and moves her face up towards Xander’s, close enough to kiss. “Xander?” she whispers. “Did I ever thank you for saving my life?”

“No,” says Xander.

Buffy slides around behind Xander. She rests her chin on his shoulder. “Don’t you wish I would?”

Buffy turns and walks away from Xander, leaving him standing on the dance floor. She walks past Angel and Cordelia, back to the table where Willow is sitting. She picks up her cloak without saying a word, and walks out of the Bronze.

Cordelia catches up with Buffy outside. “Buffy! You’re really campaigning for Bitch of the Year, aren’t you?”

Buffy turns to face her. “As defending champion, you nervous?”

Cordelia thinks she can hold her own. She’s there for another reason tonight. She doesn’t really like Buffy much, but since Buffy has on occasion saved the world, Cordy plans to do Buffy a favour, and give her some advice: “Get over it!”

“Excuse me?” asks Buffy.

“Whatever is causing the Joan Collins ‘tude, deal with it,” says Cordelia. “Embrace the pain, spank your inner moppet, whatever, but get over it. ’Cause pretty soon you’re not even going to have the loser friends you have now.”

Buffy isn’t interested in Cordelia’s advice. She thinks Cordelia should mind her own business. She turns and walks away. She flips the hood of her cloak up over her head.

That’s just fine with Cordelia. “I’ll just see if Angel feels like dancing,” she tells Buffy’s departing back.

Buffy ignores Cordy, and keeps on walking. She doesn’t see the two vampires who come out of the shadows, grab Cordelia, and drag her away.

Act III

The vampires drag Cordelia down into the factory basement, and lock her in. She discovers she isn’t alone when she nearly trips over the unconscious body of Jenny Calendar.

Buffy passes through the cemetery on the way home. She finds the empty grave where the Master’s bones had been buried. She stares at it, not wanting to believe what she is seeing. She slowly backs away from it.

Buffy thinks she catches a glimpse of the Master out of the corner of her eye, and spins to face him, but there’s nothing there.

“She’s possessed!” Willow tells Giles. She and Xander are sitting at a table in the student lounge while Giles gets himself a Coke out of the machine. “That’s the only explanation that makes any sense. I mean, you should’ve seen her last night. That wasn’t Buffy.”

Giles is dubious.

“Are we overlooking the idea that she may be very attracted to me?” asks Xander. Willow and Giles just look at him. “She’s possessed.”

Giles is still doubtful, and Willow can’t come up with any sort of specific notion for what might be possessing Buffy.

“Well, you’re the expert,” says Xander. “Hey, maybe when the Master killed her some mystical bad guy transference thing happened.”

“That’s what it was!” says Willow. “I mean, why else would she be acting like such a b-i-t-c-h?”

“Willow, I think we’re all a little too old to be spelling things out,” says Giles.

“A bitca?” asks Xander.

The class bell sounds, and most of the other students in the lounge leave. Giles sits down at the table with Willow and Xander. He thinks that the explanation for Buffy’s behaviour is probably much more mundane. “She may simply have what you Americans refer to as ‘issues.’ Her experience with the Master must have been extremely traumatic. She was, for at least a few minutes, technically dead. I don’t think she’s dealt with that on a conscious level.” Giles doesn’t see Buffy entering the lounge behind him. “She’s convinced herself that she’s invulnerable for the very reason that she feels—”

Xander notices Buffy and interrupts Giles. “That’s a very interesting point you’ve brought up—about trout.”

Giles is surprised by Xander’s non sequitur, but notices that Xander is looking behind him. He turns and sees Buffy. “Trout, yes. Trout is a fish.” He says good morning to Buffy and asks her how she slept.

“Like a rock,” says Buffy. “The Master’s gone.”

“I’m sorry?” asks Giles.

“The Master,” says Buffy. “I went by his grave last night, and they have a vacancy.”

Giles is dismayed by the news. Xander and Willow wonder why anyone would bother digging up his bones.

“They’re going to bring him back,” says Buffy. “They’re going to bring the Master back to life, and I seem to recall you telling me he was history.”

“Buffy, I’ve never heard of a revivification ritual being successful,” says Giles.

“But you’ve heard of them?” asks Buffy, “Thanks for the warning.”

“Well Buffy,” says Willow. “Giles did bury him and—”

“Look, this is Slayer stuff, okay?” snaps Buffy. “Could we have just a little less from the civilians, please?”

“Okay, that’s just about enough!” says Xander.

Principal Snyder agrees. “I believe some of us have class?” he says to the three students. “And some of us have jobs,” he says to Giles.

They all get up from the table. Giles tells them they can continue their discussion later in the library.

“About trout,” says Willow as she leaves.

Snyder watches the kids go. “There’re some things I can just smell. It’s like a sixth sense.”

“No, actually that would be one of the five,” says Giles.

Snyder gives Giles a look. “That Summers girl. I smell trouble. I smell expulsion, and just the faintest aroma of jail.”

“Before you throw away the key, you might consider giving her the benefit of the doubt,” says Giles. “She may surprise you.”

“You really have faith in those kids, don’t you?” asks Snyder.

“Yes, I do.”

Snyder shakes his head and walks away. “Weird.”

The group researches vampire revivification ceremonies into the evening in the library before Giles finds something. The account he finds is rather unclear, and is written in Latin. He translates it for them. “To revive the vampire they need his bones—which they have—and, um, the blood.—this is very unclear—of the closest person, uh, someone connected to the vampire.”

“That’d be me,” says Buffy.

“Perhaps,” says Giles.

“We were close,” says Buffy. “We killed each other. It really promotes togetherness.”

Their discussion is cut short by a rock which smashes through the library window. Xander and Giles duck away from the shattered glass.

Buffy catches the rock. There’s a note attached to it by a necklace that she recognises as the one Cordelia was wearing last night. She reads the note. “‘Come to the Bronze before it opens, or we make her a meal.’”

“They’re going to cook her dinner?” asks Xander. Everyone gives him a look. “I’ll pretend I didn’t say that.”

“What do we do?” asks Willow.

“I go to the Bronze and save the day,” says Buffy.

None of the others think that’s much of a plan, but Buffy doesn’t care what they think. She doesn’t want them coming along. “I can’t do it anymore. I can’t look after the three of you guys while I’m fighting.”

“Well, what about the rest of the note?” asks Willow.

“What rest of the note?” asks Buffy.

“The part that says: ‘P.S. This is a trap!’”

Giles agrees with Willow, he thinks Buffy will by playing straight into their hands.

“I can handle this,” says Buffy.

“Stop saying that!” says Willow, “God, what’s wrong with you?”

“This is my fight.” Buffy grabs her coat and bag on the way out of the library.

Buffy walks toward the front entrance of the Bronze. She senses something behind her and stops. “Y’know, being stalked isn’t really a big turn-on for girls.”

Angel steps out of the shadows. “You need help. Someone to watch your back.”

Buffy doesn’t turn around. “Sure you don’t mean my neck?”

Angel steps in front of Buffy. “Why are you riding me?”

“’Cause I don’t trust you,” says Buffy. “You’re a vampire.” Angel doesn’t say anything. “Oh, I’m sorry, was that an offensive term? Should I say ‘undead American?’”

“You have to trust someone,” says Angel. “You can’t do this alone. You’re not as strong as you think.”

“Think you can take me?” asks Buffy.

“What?”

“Oh, c’mon! I mean, you must’ve thought about it. What would happen if it ever came down to a fight, you vampire, me the Slayer, I mean, you must’ve wondered! Why don’t we find out?” Buffy puts her hands on her hips. “Come on. Kick my ass!”

Angel doesn’t think that they have time for this discussion now.

Buffy agrees. “Just stay out of my way.” She heads for the door into the Bronze.

“Happy to oblige,” says Angel.

The Bronze’s metal door squeaks as Buffy opens it, and then squeaks and clangs shut behind her. Buffy walks in and sees a girl with long brunette hair sitting on the floor with her back to Buffy, crying.

“That’s not Cordelia.” Buffy says to Angel who has appeared behind her. He somehow got into the Bronze without making a sound.

The vampire sitting on the floor laughs and looks around. “Cordelia couldn’t make it.”

Angel really doesn’t like this. They’ve found the bait, but he still hasn’t spotted the hook.

While Buffy is distracted by Angel the vampire attacks her from behind.

Buffy flips it to the floor, and stomps on it with her foot. She stops. “You’re right. Why would they send just one?”

Willow is worried about Buffy. She still thinks that they should have gone with her. Xander isn’t so sure. If Buffy is losing it he thinks they should be thinking of getting to minimum safe distance.

Giles finds a better translation of the revivification ceremony, the original for which was in Sumarian. “‘Closest to the Master’ actually translates as ‘nearest,’ physically. The person or persons who were with him when—” Giles stops and looks up.

“It is a trap.” Giles looks at the vampires which have appeared behind Willow and Xander. “It just isn’t for her.”

Act IV

Buffy ties up the vampire, and leaves it with Angel with instructions for him not to kill it unless he has to. She runs out of the Bronze. Angel still doesn’t know what’s going on.

Buffy finds the library in a shambles. There’s been a big fight there. Chairs and tables are broken and overturned, and the library computer is lying on the floor.

Xander picks himself up from behind the overturned table—his nose bloody—and Buffy rushes to him. He is not thrilled to see her. She asks him what happened.

“Vampires,” says Xander. “The ones you could handle yourself.”

“Where are the others?”

“I don’t know,” says Xander. “I don’t know what your problem is, what you issues are. But as of now, I officially don’t care. If you’d worked with us for five seconds, you could’ve stopped this.”

Buffy turns away from Xander, she can’t look him in the eyes right now. “We just have to think. Where would they have taken them?”

Xander isn’t quite done with what he has to say. “If they hurt Willow, I’ll kill you.”

Buffy turns back and looks at Xander. “Why did they take them and not you?”

Xander tells Buffy about what Giles found just before they were attacked. The ceremony needs the people who were with the Master when he died. “Giles, Willow, Cordelia—”

“Miss Calendar,” says Buffy.

“Odds are they’ve got a complete set by now,” says Xander.

“We need to find out where,” says Buffy.

“How?” asks Xander.

Buffy throws the vampire down onto the floor in the Bronze, and asks it where the others have been taken. She pulls it back to its feet.

The vampire isn’t telling Buffy what she wants to hear. “What are you going to do? Kill me?”

“As a matter of fact…” Buffy slams the vampire down onto one of the pool tables. “…yes.” She pulls off her cross necklace. “But, since I’m not going to kill you any time soon, the question becomes how are we going to pass the time till then?” She drops the cross into the vampire’s mouth, and holds it shut. Smoke rises from the vampire’s mouth as it struggles against Buffy’s grip on her. Angel and Xander are a little disturbed by Buffy’s ruthlessness.

Buffy pulls her cross out of the vampire’s mouth, and dangles it over the its face. “So, one more time.”

The Anointed One carries a leather covered box past the bones of the Master, and hands it to Absalom.

“Begin!” Absalom tells the assembled vampires. There are four other vampires there besides him and the Anointed. The entire scene is illuminated by torches on top of eight foot high poles.

One of the vampires starts pulling on a chain attached to a pulley, and the unconscious bodies of Willow, Giles, Cordelia and Jenny—dangling by their feet from an overhead conveyor—move out over the Master’s remains.

“Behold these four mortals,” says Absalom. “Witnesses to our Master’s wretched demise. They will breathe their last this night. The blood that pours from their throats will bring new life to the old one. We gather for his resurrection. For the dawn of this new Hell.”

Buffy Angel and Xander see the vampires gathered around the Master’s bones and their unconscious friends. They don’t have much time. Buffy tells Angel and Xander to take care of getting the others out of there. She keeps her attention on the vampires.

Angel thinks that Buffy is going to have to provide them with a distraction.

“Right,” says Buffy.

“What are you going to do?” asks Xander.

Buffy turns and looks at Xander. “I’m going to kill them all.” She turns her attention back to the vampires. “That ought to distract ’em.”

Absalom removes a knife from the box the Anointed One brought him, and holds it up before the assembled vampires. “For the old one. For his pain. For the dark.”

“For the dark!” echo the vampires.

One of them is it bit late. “For the—” He never finishes. The tip of a stake sticks out of his chest, and he explodes into a cloud of dust. Buffy is standing behind him.

No one moves for couple of seconds. The vampires are too stunned, and Buffy stands waiting for their next move. Then Absalom roars in anger, galvanising the other vampires into action. They attack Buffy.

Xander and Angel move to the pulley while Buffy battles three vampires. Absalom stays with the Anointed One, protecting him. They reach the pulley, and start to pull the others out of harm’s way.

Absalom sees his sacrifices leaving, and orders one of the vampires fighting Buffy to stop Angel and Xander. Buffy only has two vampires to fight now, one male and one female. The male grabs her from behind, but that still leaves Buffy’s feet free, and she uses them to kick the female vampire.

Absalom takes the Anointed One out of the room as Xander and Angel start lifting the others down off the conveyor. Willow is the last of them. They start to untie her.

Angel looks up and sees the vampire coming at them. He leaves Xander to take care of Willow and attacks the vampire.

Buffy frees herself from the male vampire, and kicks the female vampire away, She vaults over a wooden box, doing a flip, and grabbing the box in the process. She slams it down on the head of the vampire and kicks him in the head through the box.

The female vampire tackles Buffy from behind. Buffy wrestles with her on the floor. She grabs a broken piece of wood off the floor and stakes it.

Angel and the vampire he’s fighting step onto some rotting boards covering a hole in the floor, and fall through them. The vampire grabs one of the pieces of broken wood and tries to stake Angel with it. Angel catches it, and pushes back, staking the vampire.

Jenny wakes up. She crawls over to where Giles is just coming to himself. Giles asks her if she’s all right.

Jenny’s fine. Giles looks over to where Xander is sitting, cradling Willow in his arms “Where’s Buffy?”

Xander nods toward the factory floor. “She’s working out her issues.” On the factory floor below them Buffy is beating the crap out of the surviving vampire.

Buffy kicks her vampire into some shelving.

Absalom returns to the factory floor. He’s carrying a sledgehammer. “Enough!”

Buffy turns to look at Absalom. The other vampire starts to pick itself up out of the wreckage of the shelves.

“Your day is done, girl,” says Absalom. “I’ll grind you into a sticky paste, and hear you beg before I smash in your face.”

“So, are you going to kill me or are we just making small talk?” asks Buffy.

Absalom roars, and charges at Buffy with the hammer raised over his head. The other vampire charges at Buffy from behind.

Buffy stands still, waiting for the vampires to close on her. She grabs one of the torches, and snaps it off at the base with a kick. She spins the torch around and uses the broken end to stake the vampire coming up behind her, and the flame to set Absalom on fire.

Absalom raises up his hammer to strike at Buffy but it’s too late. He vanishes into ashes, and the hammer falls to the floor.

Buffy stands for a few seconds holding the torch, looking at where Absalom had been. She drops the torch onto the floor at her feet.

Willow’s is now awake and standing beside Xander. She looks down at Buffy on the floor below them. “It’s over.”

“No it’s not,” says Xander.

Buffy picks up the sledgehammer that Absalom dropped. She walks over to the table on which the Master’s bones are lying. She looks at them for a few seconds, and then raises the hammer and smashes it down on the Master’s skull.

Buffy keeps smashing at the rest of the Master’s skeleton while the others watch her. Angel walks up behind her. When there are no pieces left big enough to bother to smash she drops the hammer, and starts to cry. Angel enfolds her in his arms and holds her.

Epilogue

“What an ordeal.” Cordy tells Jenny as they walk across the school yard together the next day. “And you know what the worst is?”

“What?” asks Jenny.

“It stays with you forever,” says Cordelia. “No matter what they tell you, none of that rust and blood and grime comes out. I mean, you can dry clean till judgment day, you are living with those stains.”

“Yeah,” says Jenny, “that’s the worst part of being hung upside down by a vampire who wants to slit your throat: the stains.”

“I hear you!” says Cordelia.

Buffy is talking with Giles nearby. She doesn’t think she can face her friends after the way she has acted the last couple of days. “What am I supposed to say? ‘Sorry I almost got your throat slit, what’s the homework?’”

“Punishing yourself like this is pointless,” says Giles.

“It’s entirely pointy!” says Buffy. “I was a moron. I put my best friends in mortal danger on the second day of school.”

“What are you going to do?” asks Giles. “Crawl inside a cave for the rest of your life?”

“Would it have cable?” asks Buffy.

“Buffy, you acted wrongly, I admit that,” says Giles. “But believe me, it was hardly the worst mistake you’ll ever make.” Buffy looks at him. “Uh, that wasn’t quite as comforting as it was meant to be.”

Buffy gives Giles points for the effort. The bell rings, and she has to go to class.

Willow and Xander have saved Buffy a seat. Buffy tentatively joins them. They have no comment about her recent behaviour. They talk and joke about their teacher, Mr. Cox. He’s supposed to be the most boring teacher in the entire world. Xander’s heard he won an award for it.

“Well, I hear he nods off a lot,” says Willow. “So that’s a plus.”

Xander wants to know what they plan to do for fun tonight. He suggests the Bronze, but Willow thinks it’s kind of beat on Wednesdays.

“Well, we could grind our enemies into talcum powder with a sledgehammer, but, gosh, we did that last night!” says Xander. He and Willow grin at Buffy, and get a bit of a smile in response.

Xander still wants to know what they are going to do. He suggests miniature golf, but Willow points out that there is no course in Sunnydale, so Xander suggests miniature tennis instead.

The Anointed One surveys the remains of the Master, scattered in millions of tiny pieces around him. There is no hope of reviving him now. “I hate that girl!”

Death Toll