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| Weight of the World | Bargaining, Part I |
A boy runs down a narrow alley. The alley widens and he sees that he has entered a cul-de-sac, the only way out is the way he came in. He looks around desperately for a way to escape. There’s a door in the wall near the alley entrance. He starts toward it.
The vampire he has been running from steps out of the alley and the boy stops. He backs away as the vampire comes toward him.
“Gave me a pretty good run there,” says the vampire. “Bet the blood’s just pumpin’. Bet it’s hot.”
The boy pleads for the vampire not to hurt him. That just amuses it.
The door the boy had been heading toward opens and Buffy sticks her head out. “Hey, what’s going on?” The boy tells her to go call the police. The vampire just tells her to get lost.
Buffy steps out into the alley. “You guys having a fight? ’Cause, you know, fighting’s not cool.”
“Get out of here!” yells the boy.
“No, no.” The vampire turns to look at Buffy, and smiles. “She wants to stay. I don’t mind a little appetiser.”
Buffy slowly walks toward the vampire. “Have you ever heard the expression: ‘Biting off more than you can chew?’” The vampire just looks confused. “Okay. Um, how ’bout the expression: ‘Vampire Slayer?’”
“What the hell you talking about?” asks the vampire.
“Wow, never heard that one,” says Buffy. “Okay, how about: ‘Oh, god, my leg, my leg?’”
The vampire snarls and charges at Buffy. She steps aside, punches it in the head and kicks the side of its knee. The vampire collapses to the ground. “Oh, god, my leg!”
“See, now we’re communicating,” says Buffy.
The vampire surges back to its feet and attacks Buffy. It picks her up and tosses her on top of a dumpster. Buffy kicks it in the head, and flips down to the ground, kicking it a couple of more times as she does. The vampire attacks again, and Buffy knocks it flying into a stack of wooden crates, shattering them. She catches one of the broken pieces of wood flying through the air and plunges it into the vampire’s heart as it gets back to its feet. The vampire explodes into dust.
Buffy tosses aside her makeshift stake. “Wow. Been a long while since I met one who didn’t know me.” She turns and walks back toward the door. She notices the boy still in the alley. “You should get home.”
“How’d you do that?” he asks.
Buffy keeps moving toward the door. “It’s what I do.”
“But you’re— you’re just a girl.”
Buffy pauses and looks back toward where she killed the vampire. “That’s what I keep saying.” She goes back inside.
Buffy reenters the Magic Box. Giles, Willow and Xander are seated at the round table, which is covered in books. Spike is sitting on the ladder leading up to the loft, and Anya stands looking on. Tara sits huddled in a chair in the corner, mostly keeping quiet, but sometimes making incoherent outbursts.
Xander asks what was going on out back, and Buffy tells him it was just a vampire. She asks Giles if he’s discovered anything new. He hasn’t learned anything she wants to hear.
“Explain it again,” says Buffy.
“There’s nothing new to—”
“Go through it…again.”
Giles takes off his glasses. “The Key was living energy. It needed to be channeled, poured into a specific place at a specific time. The energy would flow into that spot. The walls between the dimensions break down. It stops, the energy’s used up, the walls come back up. Glory uses that time to get back into her own dimension, not caring that all manner of hell will be unleashed on Earth in the meantime.”
“But only for a little while, right?” asks Anya. “The walls come back, uh, no more hell?”
“That’s only if the energy is stopped,” says Willow. “And now the Key is human…” She looks at Buffy. “…is Dawn…”
Giles puts his glasses back on, and reads from the book in front of him. “‘The blood flows, the gates will open. The gates will close when it flows no more.’” He takes his glasses off again. “When Dawn is dead.”
“Why blood?” asks Xander. “Why Dawn’s blood? I mean, why couldn’t it be like a—a lymph ritual?”
“’Cause it’s always got to be blood,” says Spike.
Xander doesn’t think that they are discussing dinner right now.
“Blood is life, lackbrain,” says Spike. “Why do you think we eat it? It’s what keeps you going, makes you warm, makes you hard, makes you other than dead. Course it’s her blood.” He takes a drag from his cigarette.
Buffy thinks that the solution to their problem is pretty simple. They have to stop Glory before she can start her ritual. They still have a couple of hours according to Giles’ calculations. Giles thinks that they need to discuss other options though. Buffy doesn’t want to hear them.
“I understand that,” says Giles.
“No! No, you don’t understand!” says Buffy. “We are not talking about this.”
Giles jumps to his feet. “Yes, we bloody well are!” Everyone is surprised by his outburst. He pulls himself back under control with visible effort. “If Glory begins the ritual… If we can’t stop her…”
“Come on, say it,” says Buffy. “We’re bloody well talking about this! Tell me to kill my sister.”
“She’s not your sister,” says Giles.
“No…she’s not,” says Buffy. “She’s more than that. She’s me. The monks made her out of me. I hold her, and I feel closer to her than… It’s not just the memories they built. It’s physical. Dawn is a part of me. The only part that I—”
“We’ll solve this,” says Willow. “We will. Don’t have another coma, okay?”
“If the ritual starts, then every living creature in this and every other dimension imaginable will suffer unbearable torment and death,” says Giles. “Including Dawn.”
“Then the last thing she’ll see is me protecting her,” says Buffy.
“You’ll fail. You’ll die. We all will.”
“I’m sorry,” says Buffy. “I love you all, but I’m sorry.” She turns and walks away from the table.
“Okay, all in favour of stopping Glory before the ritual!” Anya raises her hand. “Suggestions, ideas? Time’s a-wastin’!”
“Uh…” says Spike. “When you say you love us all—”
“Shut up!” Xander and Giles tell him together.
Anya is still trying to get some ideas. She suggests that maybe Willow can work up a spell to turn Glory into a little hoppy toad that they can hit with a hammer. Tara thinks the hoppy toad is funny, and giggles.
“What about Ben?” asks Xander. “He can be killed, right? I mean I know he’s an innocent, but, you know, not like ‘Dawn’ innocent. We could kill a…regular guy.”
No one likes that idea, including Xander. Giles doesn’t think that they will have the opportunity anyway. He doubts if Glory will let Ben resurface this close to the ritual.
Willow suggests that they don’t have to actually kill Glory. She is only going to have one chance to perform her ritual. They only have to delay her.
“Yeah,” says Spike. “We get her on the ropes, we just got to keep her occupied till it’s too late.”
Anya still isn’t hearing enough ideas. She wants people to think outside the box.
“Why don’t you go think outside the bleeding box,” says Spike.
“Yes, Anya, apart from your incredibly uninfectious enthusiasm, have you anything else to contribute?” asks Giles.
“The Dagon Sphere!” says Anya.
“Sorry?” asks Giles.
“When Buffy first met Glory, she found that magical, glowy sphere that was meant to repel Glory. We’ve got it in the basement. It might drive her away or hurt her.”
Anya gets another idea. “Oh!” She moves to a shelf and gestures toward it like a game show hostess presenting a prize. “And Olaf the trollgod’s enchanted hammer. You want to fight a god, use the weapon of a god.”
“Nyah,” says Spike. “That thing’s too heavy to—”
Buffy picks the hammer up off the shelf and swings it around effortlessly with one hand. “Yeah, good.” She thanks Anya for the idea.
“Here to help,” says Anya. “Want to live.”
Xander smiles at Anya. “Smart chicks are so hot,” he tells Willow.
“You couldn’t have figured that out in tenth grade?” asks Willow.
Giles thinks that they have some good ideas for how to get Glory on the run, but they still have no idea where she is.
“Big day!” says Tara. “Oh, it calls me.” Everyone looks at her. “I have to be there. Big day!”
Dawn sits huddled on the floor in a corner of the construction office with Murk and another minion watching over her. Ben enters holding a folded dress that he tells her she has to put on. Dawn doesn’t want to. She tells him she doesn’t like the colour.
“Look,” says Ben. “I wish there was another way.”
“And I wish you’d fall on your head and drown in your own barf,” says Dawn. “So…I guess we’re both disappointed.”
“I think…it’ll be quick,” says Ben.
“Actually, sir, the bleeding is quite a slow process,” says Murk, “To give the portal time to—”
Ben doesn’t appreciate the contradiction. He starts to tell Dawn he’ll do all he can to make this easier for her.
“Change,” says Dawn quietly.
“What?”
“Change,” says Dawn. “Be her. I don’t want to look at you.”
“Dawn, I don’t think you want to—”
“Be Glory. Be Glory! Glory! Glory! Glory!”
“Will you just stop…” Ben transforms into Glory. “…shouting already? So, what’s the hubbub, bub? What do you got against old Benjy?” She sits in a chair and examines the dress.
“He’s a monster,” says Dawn. “At least you’re up front about it.”
Glory thinks that Dawn is being too hard on Ben. He just wants to live, like everyone else. She also figures he’s the reason why Buffy and her friends are still alive. “That little nagging pinch of humanity that makes me go for the hurt instead of the kill. Lowering myself to trade blows with the Slayer when I should have just put my fist through her heart. It’s got to be Ben.” She stands up, shakes out the dress, and holds it out to look at.
“Or maybe you just can’t take her,” says Dawn.
Glory tosses the skirt of the dress into Dawn’s lap, and she catches it. Glory has kept hold of the other end, and pulls on it. Dawn is too startled to let go, and gets pulled to her feet.
Glory grabs Dawn and spins her around. She doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that Buffy hasn’t shown up to try to save Dawn yet. She knows it would be a terrible mistake.
“She’s not afraid of you,” says Dawn.
“Oh, no, sweetie baby, I’m talkin’ about the ritual. ’Cause you know I bleed you, the portals open, but once you die, they close.” Glory brushes Dawn’s hair back off her shoulder and places her hand on the side of Dawn’s face. “The faster you die, the better for your sorry species. I’m bettin’ Buffy knows that.”
Glory sinks her fingernails into Dawn’s face. Dawn grimaces in pain, but doesn’t make a sound.
“Since she’s not really your sister, I’m guessin’ she isn’t going to show. And if she does…might not be to save you.” Glory pushes Dawn away, and she falls onto a grate on the floor.
“Buffy.” whispers Dawn.
Buffy beats on the punching bag in her training room. Giles comes in and asks if she isn’t worried about tiring herself out. Buffy isn’t. She doesn’t even turn around to look at him.
Giles tells Buffy the others are still working on ideas for fighting Glory. They don’t have much time, but their only chance seems to be to attack at the last minute, and make her miss her window.
“Then we wait.” Buffy hits the punching bag one more time, and knocks it off its chain.
“I imagine you hate me right now,” says Giles. Buffy still doesn’t turn around or say anything. He slowly walks toward her. “I love Dawn.”
“I know.”
“But I have sworn to protect this sorry world, and sometimes that means saying and doing…what other people can’t…what they shouldn’t have to.”
Buffy turns to look at him. “You try and hurt her, and you know I’ll stop you.”
“I know.”
Buffy goes and sits on the sofa. “This is how many apocalypses for us now?”
Giles sits down beside her. “Oh, uh, well, six, at least1. Feels like a hundred.”
“I’ve always stopped them, always won,” says Buffy. “I sacrificed Angel to save the world. I loved him so much. But I knew…what was right. I don’t have that anymore. I don’t understand. I don’t know how to live in this world if these are the choices, if everything just gets stripped away. I don’t see the point. I just wish that… I just wish my mom was here.”
Buffy stands up and starts toward the door. She stops and looks back at Giles. “The spirit guide told me that death is my gift. Guess that means a Slayer really is just a killer, after all.”
“I think you’re wrong about that.”
“It doesn’t matter,” says Buffy. “If Dawn dies, I’m done with it. I’m quitting.”
Dawn has changed into the ceremonial dress Glory had prepared for her. She puts her carefully folded clothes on a chair, and places her shoes underneath it. Murk enters and whispers to Glory that everything is ready.
“Okay, campers, it’s almost stab time!” Glory points to Murk and another minion. “You two, get her.”
The minions grab Dawn and start to drag her outside. She tries to resist them but it’s futile.
Glory waves goodbye to Dawn. “See ya in a few.”
Murk and the other minion drag Dawn out of the office and onto the construction site. She gets her first look at what the minions and Glory’s mind suck victims have built: a one hundred foot tall gantry, with a platform sticking out at the top that looks like a diving board. The minions drag her toward the stairs at the base of the tower.
Giles calls down into the basement to find out if Xander and Anya have had any luck finding the Dagon Sphere. They come out from under the stairs—Anya pulling on her sweater, and Xander zipping up his pants—and tell him they haven’t found it yet. They’re still looking.
“Time is a factor.” Giles calls down to them. Anya tells him not to worry. He closes the door, and Anya starts looking through a box of junk.
“So, are you more relaxed?” asks Xander.
“No.”
“No? I mean it sounded like you, uh…arrived.”
“No,” says Anya. “Yes. I had the pleasure moment and the blissful calm that comes right after it. But that only lasted a couple of seconds, and now I’m terrified again.”
Xander tells Anya she doesn’t have to worry. He pulls at a blanket covering something and yelps in surprise.
“What?” asks Anya.
Xander has uncovered Spike’s Buffybot. “Why didn’t they just melt it down into scrap?”
“Maybe Willow wanted it.” Anya goes back to looking around.
“I don’t think Willow feels that way about— about Buffy,” says Xander. “I mean, I know she’s going through a lot of changes, but—”
“To study it,” says Anya.
“Right. Robotics. Science.” Xander goes back to searching through the other junk stacked in the basement.
Anya starts digging through another box. “And don’t frighten me like that! God, who— who would put something like that there?” She pulls a stuffed toy rabbit out of the box. “Is this supposed to be some sort of sick joke? I mean, things aren’t bad enough. This is an omen!”
Xander tries to calm Anya down, but she doesn’t want to be calmed. “No, no, no, it’s an omen! It’s a higher power, trying to tell me through bunnies, that we’re all going to die! Oh, god!”
Xander hugs Anya, and tells her that things are going to be okay, but Anya doesn’t believe him. “Usually, when there’s an apocalypse, I skedaddle. But now I love you so much that, instead, I have inappropriately timed sex and try to think of ways to fight a god and worry terribly that something might happen to you. And also worry that something’ll happen to me. And then I have guilt that I’m not more worried about everyone else, but I just don’t have enough. I’m just on total overload, and I honestly don’t think that I could be more nervous than I am right now.”
“Care to wager on that?” Xander holds up an open ring box in front of her. “Anya…you want to marry me?”
Anya starts to smile, but the smile quickly fades, and she slaps him.
“Can I take that as a ‘maybe?’” asks Xander.
“You’re proposing to me.”
“Yes…”
“You’re proposing to me ’cause we’re going to die. And you think it’s romantic and sexy, and you know you’re not going to have to go through with it ’cause the world’s going to end!”
“I’m proposing to you, Anya, because it’s not.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I believe it,” says Xander. “I think we’re going to get through this. I think I’m going to live a long and silly life, and I’m not interested in doing that without you around.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yes. I mean, yes.” Anya holds out her hand and Xander starts to slip the ring onto her finger. She suddenly pulls her hand away. “No.”
“No?”
“After. Give it to me when the world doesn’t end.” Anya smiles, grabs Xander in a hug, and kisses him.
Buffy asks Willow if she’s found anything. Willow is still sitting at the round table looking through books, with Tara in a chair nearby.
Willow has a few ideas, but nothing concrete. “Did I mention I’m not good under pressure?”
“I need you, Will,” says Buffy. “You’re my big gun.”
Willow doesn’t like the sound fo that, but Buffy tells her she’s the strongest person there. She’s the only one who has ever hurt Glory at all. “You’re my best shot at getting her on the ropes, so don’t get a jelly belly on me now.”
Willow does have an idea. She’s been looking into ways to help Tara, and she may have found a way to reverse what Glory did to her, if she can get close enough. “It might weaken Glory, or make her less coherent, or it might make all our heads explode. I’ll try to work it.”
Xander and Anya have come up from the basement with the Dagon Sphere, and are talking with Giles. He calls Buffy over. She leaves Willow sitting with Tara.
“Don’t worry, love.” Willow tells Tara. “It won’t be long.”
Tara slaps Willow. “Bitch! I’m supposed to work on the factors!” She stops and looks lost and confused. “I’m not…”
“I’m going to bring you back,” says Willow.
Buffy likes what she’s heard from Xander and Anya. It could be pivotal, but she’s going to need to pick up some things at home. She asks if they have time. Giles tells her that she’ll have to hurry. She’ll pick up some weapons while she’s at it. Xander asks for a broadsword.
“Don’t be swinging that thing near me,” says Spike.
“Hey,” says Xander. “I happen to be—”
“A glorified bricklayer?” asks Spike.
Xander searches for a comeback. “I’m also a swell bowler.”
“Has his own shoes,” says Anya.
“The gods themselves do tremble.”
“Spike, shut your mouth,” says Buffy. “Come with me.”
Buffy enters the front foyer of her house, and tells Spike that the weapons are in the chest by the TV. She has to get some stuff upstairs.
Buffy starts up the stairs, but Spike doesn’t come inside. “Um, Buffy…” She stops and looks at him quizzically. He waves from outside the door and tells her she can just hand the stuff out to him.
Buffy suddenly understands. “Come in, Spike.”
Spike is surprised, and smiles. “Presto. No barrier.” He steps across the threshold, and moves into the living room. “Um, we won’t bother with the small stuff. Couple of good axes should hold off Glory’s mates while you take on the lady yourself.”
“We’re not all going to make it,” says Buffy. “You know that.”
“Yeah,” says Spike. “Hey, I always knew I’d go down fighting.”
“I’m counting on you…to protect her.”
“Till the end of the world,” says Spike. “Even if that happens to be tonight.”
“I’ll be a minute.” Buffy starts back up the stairs.
“I know you’ll never love me,” says Spike, and Buffy stops and turns to look at him. “I know that I’m a monster. But you treat me like a man, and that’s…get your stuff. I’ll be here.”
Buffy goes upstairs.
Glory’s minions drag Dawn out onto the platform at the top of the gantry. They tie her hands to a couple of posts at the end, with her bare toes dangling over the edge of a hole in the platform. They leave her there.
One of the minions looks back at Dawn. “She will come to you soon.”
Buffy and Spike return to the Magic Box. Things are moving on schedule, it’s time for them to be going. “Will?” asks Buffy.
Willow goes over to Tara. “Tara, baby…is there somewhere you should be?”
“They held me down,” says Tara.
“No one’s holding you,” says Willow. “It’s the big day, right? Do you want to go?”
Tara moves toward the door. She passes Giles at his desk, where he’s picking up some weapons. She points at him. “You’re a killer.” She continues toward the door. “This is all set down.”
Buffy tells Willow to stay close to Tara. She’ll be along in a minute. “Everybody knows their jobs. Remember, the ritual starts, we all die. And I’ll kill anyone who comes near Dawn.”
Spike and Giles follow Willow and Tara out of the shop. “Well, not exactly the Saint Crispin’s day speech,2 was it?” asks Spike.
“We few. We happy few,” says Giles.
“We band of buggered,” says Spike.
Tara leads a mini parade down the street. She starts pulling at the cast on her right hand. She pauses by an old pickup truck, and looks up. She moves quickly across the street.
The others pause by the truck too. They all look up at the gantry.
“Shpadoinkle,” says Xander.
“What is that?” asks Anya.
“The portal must open up there,” says Giles.
Buffy tells Willow she’s up, and Giles asks if there’s anything she needs.
“Could use a little courage,” says Willow. Spike offers her his flask. “The real kind. But thanks.”
Spike nods, and puts the flask back in his pocket.
Tara walks onto the construction site. She finishes pulling the cast off her right hand, and walks over to a pile of bricks. She picks one up—with her left hand.
Glory grabs Tara by her shoulder, and spins her around. “You? What are you doing here?”
Willow steps up beside them. “She’s with me!”
Willow sinks her fingers into Glory and Tara’s heads. Energy flows through her, out of Glory, and into Tara. After a few seconds a blast of power sends all three of them flying. Willow and Tara are knocked unconscious.
Glory staggers back to her feet, while Murk and another minion rush over to her. “What the frickin’ hell did that bitch do to me?”
The minions exchange a glance and then tell Glory she looks fine.
“She made a little…she made a hole. Oh, I need a brain to eat.”
The minion bows his head to Glory. “Oh, take mine, O Groove-tastic One.”
“I said a brain, you worthless dirt.” Glory staggers away from them. “Big day. I got places to be. Big day. Need a brain.” She looks up and sees someone. “Suppose I could always use yours.”
“Okay then.” Buffy is standing casually hipshot in the gate, with her hands behind her back. “Come and get it.”
Buffy cocks her head and looks at Glory. “You don’t seem very well.”
Glory is still looking pretty unsteady on her feet. “Your little Witch Bitch gave me kind of a headache there, but if you think this is going to last more than eight seconds—” She pulls off her robe, and drops it behind her. A minion catches it.
“I noticed you’re talking, whereas in your position, I would attack me,” says Buffy.
The minion asks Glory if they should attack, but Glory tells them to go guard the girl. “This is… This is a, uh…”
“Diversionary tactic?” asks Murk.
“Go! Guard!” says Glory. The minions leave her and start to gather everyone around the base of the tower.
“It’s strange,” says Buffy, “you’re not as blurry with speed as usual, either.”
“The witch—” says Glory.
“It’s not her.” Buffy pulls the Dagon Sphere out from behind her back and looks at it. “Might be this. I heard it’s supposed to repel you, so my guess is you probably shouldn’t touch it, either.” She tosses the sphere at Glory.
Glory’s catches the sphere. It’s power makes her grimace in pain, but she crushes it in her hand. “You’re going to wish you were—” She’s stopped by a kick in the face from Buffy. Buffy follows it up with a quick series of kicks and punches which make Glory stagger back.
Murk and the other minion take positions on the stairs at the base of the tower. “Stand fast!” the minion calls out to the others. “Kill anyone who dares approach! This will be our day of glory!”
“Well punned,” says Murk.
“Well, it just called out to me,” says the minion. He gets an arrow in the chest.
Murk looks toward where the arrow came from. The arrow was fired by Spike. He, Giles, and Anya wade into the crowd of minions and people around the base of the tower. Giles cuts one of the minions down with the sword he’s carrying, and Anya swings a baseball bat at anything that comes near her.
Dawn hears the commotion going on far below her. She looks down, trying to see what’s happening.
Buffy flips Glory onto a stack of bricks. She lands on her back, and Buffy punches down at her head. Glory dodges the punch, and Buffy shatters some bricks. She doesn’t seem to notice.
Buffy punches at Glory again, but this time Glory catches her arm, and she throws Buffy into a couple of sawhorses.
Willow comes to, and tries to stand, but she can’t. She crawls across to Tara. “Tara? Tara? Tara?”
Tara looks up at her. “Willow? Willow, I got so lost.”
“I found you.” Willow kisses and hugs Tara. “I will always find you.”
Glory rolls to her feet. “You know what?” She catches Buffy’s hand in hers as Buffy tries to punch her again. “I’m feeling a little better. And now I’m a little bored.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Buffy punches at Glory again. “’Cause you’re about—”
Glory kicks out at Buffy, and knocks her head right off. Buffy’s body falls to the ground, sparks flashing from the neck.
“Wow! The Slayer’s a robot!” Glory looks around. “Did everybody else know the Slayer was a robot?”
Buffy steps up behind her. “Glory?” Glory spins around and Buffy bashes her in the head with Olaf’s troll hammer. Glory goes flying. “You’re not the brightest god in the heavens, are you?”
Dawn sees Buffy beneath her. “Buffy! I’m up here! Buffy!”
Buffy hesitates for a moment, looking back and forth between the tower platform, and Glory lying on the ground in front of her. She makes up her mind and runs through the melee taking place at the base of the tower, and up the stairs. She tosses Murk out of the way when he tries to stop her.
Glory gets back to her feet “Oh, no, you don’t!” She takes off after Buffy.
Glory catches up with Buffy about twenty feet up. Buffy swings the troll hammer at her again, but Glory manages to knock it out of her hands. It gets caught in some chains dangling from the tower. Buffy tries to recover it, but Glory pulls her away.
Buffy kicks Glory away, and tries to climb higher up the tower. Glory catches her, and pulls her back down. Buffy and Glory exchange some more punches and kicks. Buffy maneuvers herself back toward where the troll hammer is hung up in the chains. She knocks Glory away, and reaches for it again. This time she manages to grab it before Glory can get to her, but she’s still off balance when Glory comes back at her. Glory’s attack knocks the hammer out of her hand again, and Buffy starts to topple from the tower. She grabs Glory and pulls her off with her.
Buffy and Glory land near the base of the tower, and scramble back to their feet. Buffy pushes Glory up against the outer wall of the construction site.
Glory looks at Buffy. “You lost your hammer, sweet cheeks. Heh. What are you going to hit me with now?”
Buffy glances aside. A wrecking ball comes through the wall beside Glory and knocks her flying, through the opposite wall, and into the construction office.
“Whatever’s handy,” says Buffy. She goes to get the hammer again.
Xander is sitting in the cab of the crane. “And the glorified bricklayer picks up a spare.”
Anya, Spike and Giles have taken cover behind a welding generator “Has anyone noticed we’re going backwards?” asks Anya.
Spike takes a peek over the generator, and gets hit in the head by a brick. “It’s crossed my mind.”
Giles looks up at the tower. “As long as Buffy can keep Glory down long enough, it doesn’t matter. There’s only a few minutes left to start the ritual.”
Buffy grabs Olaf’s hammer and runs into the construction office after Glory. She starts to hit her repeatedly with it.
Dawn gasps when sees she isn’t alone on the platform. Doc is standing on the platform with her. “You. You can help me,” says Dawn. “Untie me. Please. Help me, she’s coming.”
Doc slowly walks toward Dawn. “Well, it seems she’s running a bit late, is the thing. And if Her Splendidness can’t be here in time to bleed you… Hey, kid.” He winks at her. “Want to see a trick?”
Doc pulls a knife from his sleave and holds it in front of Dawn.
Xander joins Anya, Giles and Spike behind the generator, and asks how they’re doing. So far it seems to be a tie.
“We haven’t got up to Dawn,” says Giles, “but neither has anyone else.”
Spike is looking up at the platform. “Someone’s up there.”
Xander wants to charge the tower or something, but they’ve already tried that, and it didn’t work.
Spike hears Willow’s voice in his head. “Spike, can you hear me?”
“Yeah,” says Spike. “Loud and clear,” says Spike.
“Is there someone up there with Dawn?” asks Willow.
“Yeah. Can’t tell who.”
Xander, Giles and Anya look at Spike seeming to have a conversation by himself. “Are you talking to us?” asks Xander.
“Get up there.” says Willow. “Go now.”
Spike takes a peek around the generator at the crowd of people and minions between him and the base of the tower. “Yeah, but—”
“Go!” orders Willow. Spike goes.
Willow reaches out and grabs Tara’s hand in hers. Together they clear a path for Spike through the crowd, and he charges up the stairs.
Doc looks at his pocket watch. It’s time for him to begin.
“Spike!” says Dawn as he appears behind Doc. Doc spins around.
Spike is a little surprised to see Doc here. “Doesn’t a fella stay dead when you kill him?”
“Look who’s talking,” says Doc.
“Come on, Doc. Let’s you and me have a go.”
Doc looks at the knife in his hand. “I… do have a prior appointment.”
“This won’t take long.”
“No. I don’t imagine it will,” says Doc. Spike charges at him. Doc darts around Spike, and sinks his knife into Spike’s back.
Buffy beats on Glory with Olaf’s hammer, again and again.
Glory is visibly weakening, and her nose is starting to bleed. “You’re just a mortal. You couldn’t understand my pain.”
“Then I’ll just have to settle for causing it.” Buffy hits Glory again.
“You can’t kill me.”
“No, but my arm’s not even tired yet.” Buffy hits Glory again.
Spike pulls away from Doc, placing himself between Doc and Dawn. The knife falls onto the platform.
Doc is puzzled by this behaviour from a vampire. He can’t smell any sign of soul on Spike. “Why do you even care?”
“I made a promise to a lady,” says Spike.
Doc’s tongue darts out at Spike. He dodges it, but Doc uses the distraction to drop down, and sweep Spike’s legs out from underneath him. They both get back to their feet quickly, but Doc grabs Spike’s arm and twists it around behind his back. He holds Spike off balance, leaning over the edge of the platform. “Well, I’ll send the lady your regrets.”
Spike looks at Dawn, knowing he’s failed. “No!”
Doc pushes Spike off the platform.
”No!” screams Dawn as Spike falls. Spike lands on a pile of bricks in the construction site below.
Glory falls to her knees as Buffy continues to beat on her with the hammer. “Stop it,” she pleads.
“You’re a god.” Buffy hits Glory under her chin with an upward sweep of the hammer, knocking her sprawling on top of the grate on which she had thrown Dawn earlier that evening. “Make it stop.” Buffy doesn’t let up. She keeps hitting Glory over and over.
Buffy finally pauses in her assault, and Glory transforms back into Ben. “I’m sorry,” he says.
“Tell her it’s over,” says Buffy. “She missed her shot. She goes. She ever, ever comes near me and mine again…”
“We won’t. I swear.” Ben coughs up some blood.
Buffy drops the hammer, and runs for the base of the tower.
“I guess we’re stuck with each other, huh, baby.” Ben tells himself.
Giles kneels beside Ben and asks if he can move.
Ben thinks he’s going to need a few minutes. “She could’ve killed me.”
“No, she couldn’t,” says Giles. “Never. And sooner or later, Glory will re-emerge and make Buffy pay for that mercy. And the world with her. Buffy even knows that, and still she couldn’t take a human life.” Giles pulls his glasses out of his jacket pocket and puts them on. “She’s a hero, you see. She’s not like us.”
“Us?” asks Ben.
Giles places his hand over Ben’s mouth, and nose. Ben tries to struggle, but he’s too weak to break free from the grip Giles has on him. Giles doesn’t let go until he’s sure Ben is dead.
Doc’s knife slashes across Dawn’s ribs, and she screams.
“Shallow cuts.” Doc almost sings as he slashes Dawn again. “Shallow cuts. Let the blood flow… free.”
Buffy arrives at the top of the tower. Dawn’s blood is starting to run down her legs to her feet.
Doc hears Buffy, and looks around. “This should be interesting.” He rushes toward her with the knife. Buffy bats the knife aside, and casually pushes Doc off the platform. She rushes to her sister.
“Buffy, it hurts,” says Dawn. Blood starts to drip from her toes.
Buffy starts to untie her. “I got it.” The blood drips down from Dawn’s toes into the space beneath her. “You’re going to be okay.”
Buffy finishes untying Dawn and pushes her down the platform. “Go!”
The last drops of Dawn’s blood fall into the space beneath the platform, and the portal opens.
Dawn sees the flash of light, and stops. She turns around. “Buffy, it’s started.”
The portal grows, and sends out bolts of lighting. One of them crashes into the main street of Sunnydale, opening a crater that a car narrowly avoids falling into. Another hits City Hall, and it transforms into an alien structure, full of demons.
The ground under the tower shakes, and a crack opens up under where Spike is lying on the ground. He rolls away from it. Anya calls out a warning and pushes Xander clear as a wall starts to collapse. She gets caught under a pile of falling rubble.
Dawn looks at the portal growing beneath the platform. “I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter,” says Buffy.
Dawn tries to push past Buffy, but Buffy grabs her. “What are you doing?”
“I have to jump,” says Dawn. “The energy—”
“It’ll kill you!”
“I know,” says Dawn. “Buffy, I know about the ritual. I have to stop it. I have to! Look at what’s happening!” A dragon comes out of the portal, and flies around them. “Buffy, you have to let me go. Blood starts it, and until the blood stops flowing, it’ll never stop. You know you have to let me.”
Buffy looks at her sister. Can she let Dawn do this?
“It has to have the blood,” says Dawn
Buffy remembers:
Buffy turns away from Dawn and looks out along the platform toward the portal. She sees the first sliver of the rising sun beyond it. She looks back at Dawn.
Dawn looks at her sister, and knows what she’s planning to do. “Buffy, no.”
“Dawnie, I have to.”
“No!”
Buffy takes hold of Dawn’s shoulders. “Listen to me. Please, there’s not a lot of time. Listen.” Buffy leans close and speaks quietly to her.
Buffy gives Dawn a final kiss on the cheek, turns away, and runs down the platform. When she reaches the end she jumps, spreading her arms into a swan dive into the portal. She hangs suspended in it. Its power being absorbed into her body. Dawn remembers her sister’s last words to her.
“Dawn, listen to me. Listen. I love you. I will always love you, but this is the work that I have to do.”
The portal closes, it’s power having been absorbed into Buffy’s body, and she falls to the ground.
Buffy’s friends gather around her body. Willow has to lean against Tara to stay on her feet, and Xander is carrying Anya. Spike steps into a beam of light from the rising sun, and ducks out of it. He crouches on the ground, crying.
“Tell Giles…tell Giles I figured it out and…and I’m okay. And give my love to my friends. You have to take care of them now. You have to take care of each other. You have to be strong. Dawn, the hardest thing in this world is to live in it. Be brave. Live. For me.”
In a secluded clearing in the woods near Sunnydale, surrounded by willow trees stands a gravestone.
BUFFY ANNE SUMMERS
1981 - 2001
BELOVED SISTER
DEVOTED FRIEND
SHE SAVED THE WORLD
A LOT
| Who or What | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| A vampire | Alley behind the Magic Box | Staked by Buffy |
| Glory Minion | Construction site | Shot with crossbow by Spike |
| Glory Minion | Construction site | Killed with a sword by Giles |
| Ben/Glory | Construction Site | Suffocated by Giles |
| Buffy Anne Summers | 100 feet over the construction site | Threw herself into the portal to save the world |
There have been other near apocalypses that Buffy has averted, such as the Judge in Innocence, the Mayor in Graduation Day, and Adam in Primeval.
But we in it shall be remembered—
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.