Introduction
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| Villains | Grave |
Buffy, Anya and Xander run through the woods. Xander pauses and leans against a tree. He’s feeling nauseous after what he’s just seen. “What happened back there, the sounds of it…the smell.”
“I know,” says Buffy.
“Willow did that.”
“That’s why we have to keep moving. You heard what she said. ‘One down.’” Buffy starts walking rapidly through the woods again. Xander and Anya follow her.
“She was talking about two to go, right?” asks Anya. “Jonathan and…what’s-his-face, the other guy.”
“Andrew,” says Buffy. “They’re sitting at county jail without a clue Willow’s coming.”
Xander doesn’t think it makes any sense for Willow to kill Jonathan and Andrew too, but Buffy doesn’t think Willow’s running on sense. “She just tasted blood. She could be there already.”
“No, she couldn’t,” says Anya. “A witch at her level, she could only go airborne. It’s a thing. More flashy and impresses the locals, but it does take longer.”
“Longer than what?” asks Xander.
“Teleporting.” Anya disappears in a whirl of smoke.
“Right. Vengeance demon,” says Xander. “Well, at least she’ll get there first.”
Buffy starts moving quickly through the woods again. “I’m counting the ways that can go wrong.”
“Well, Anya can handle herself.”
“Against Willow tonight?” asks Buffy. “Don’t be too sure.”
Xander hopes that Willow will be coming down soon from the state she’s in. “I mean, back there, she was out of her head, running on grief and magicks.”
“Doesn’t matter,” says Buffy. “Willow just killed someone. Killing people changes you. Believe me, I know.”
Xander isn’t too upset by Warren’s death. He figures Warren pretty much got what he deserved. Buffy agrees about Warren, but she doesn’t think that Andrew and Jonathan deserve it too.
“This is still Willow we’re dealing with, right?” asks Xander.
“I hope so. Whatever she’s going through, we have to stop her. Maybe we can actually do that if we can get to your…” Buffy reaches the edge of the woods. “…car.”
Xander’s car is a battered wreck. The windshield is smashed, and the hood is bent upward. Steam is rising from the radiator.
“Guess she wants to finish the job without us tagging along,” says Buffy. “Meet me at the jail.”
“Sure,” says Xander. “How’re you going to…” Buffy is already off and running. She jumps over a fallen tree, and disappears into the darkness. “Okay, then. I’ll just catch up. She’s only my best friend, you know. No big deal, just…” Xander bashes the hood of his car in frustration. “…glad I can help.”
Jonathan leans against the bars of their cell, watching the janitor sweep the hall outside. Andrew is sitting on the lower bunk, listening to his wrist. He asks Jonathan to move over a couple of feet.
Jonathan asks what for, and Andrew tells him he’s listening for signals.
Jonathan turns around. “Oh, for crying out loud! Signals? Who from, your probe-happy alien friends? Say, maybe we can trade a pack of cigarettes in for tinfoil. Make you a nice little antenna hat.”
“Laugh it up, fuzzball. I figured it out,” says Andrew. Jonathan leans back against the bars and crosses his arms while he listens. “Warren never abandoned us. Well, not me, anyway. This is like his test. If we can figure out how he’s communicating with us, then we’ll be, you know, worthy.”
“You’re checking for implants?” asks Jonathan.
“Lex Luther had a false epidermis escape kit in Superman versus the Amazing Spiderman, Treasury Edition.”
“Okay, first of all, those were sonic disrupters,” says Jonathan. “Second of all, you are sadness personified: waiting for Warren? Yeah, maybe he’ll come bust us out of here in Santa’s magic sleigh.”
Andrew jumps to his feet. “I’m telling him you said that.”
“Why wait? Tell him right now.” Jonathan grabs Andrew’s arm and pulls his elbow up like a microphone. “Hey, Warren, do you read me? Your girlfriend’s pathetic! Over.”
Andrew pulls away and tells Jonathan to shut up. This is the sort of thing that led to him and Warren getting jet packs, and Jonathan getting left behind. Jonathan is pleased to finally have that admission out of Andrew.
“Why not?” Andrew pulls himself up to his full height. “You were out of the Trio a long time ago…in a galaxy far, far away, and you want to know why, little feller?” He looks down at Jonathan. “No respect for the chain of command.”
“See how far it’s gotten you?” asks Jonathan. “Checking every hole in your sad little body for transmitters that don’t exist.”
“Oh, I’ll find it, if I have to check every hole in my body and yours.”
Jonathan grabs Andrew and they start to wrestle. They are broken up by the shock wave from Anya’s appearance in their cell. They’re knocked back against the bars.
“There you two are,” says Anya. “Listen to me. We have to get you out of here, or you’ll both be killed.” She turns toward the bars. “Guard!” Jonathan asks what’s going on, but Anya ignores him and calls for the guard again.
Andrew tells her to stop, and turns back to Jonathan. “I don’t trust her. Do you trust her? This is major uncool.”
“Um…Anya?” says Jonathan. “You’re going to have to break this down for us a little.”
“Warren shot Buffy,” says Anya. “Warren shot Tara. Buffy’s alive. Tara’s dead. Willow found out, and being the most powerful Wicca in the western hemisphere, decided to get the payback, with interest.”
“What about Warren?” asks Andrew.
“She killed him,” says Anya. “Ripped him apart, and bloodied up the forest doing it. Now she’s coming here, and the two of you are next.”
“Oh, my god. Warren,” says Andrew.
“Oh, my god. Me.” says Jonathan. He joins Anya in shouting for the guard.
“We didn’t do anything,” says Andrew.
The guard finally comes to see what all the noise is about. He’s surprised to find an extra girl in the cell. “Who the hell are you?”
Anya tells the guard that something bad is coming, he has to let Jonathan and Andrew out.
The guard doesn’t want to believe her. “Okay, uh, what exactly’s coming?”
“One of the many things in this world you are not prepared to deal with,” says Anya.
“Huh. That a fact?” asks the guard.
“Yes, and we’re running out of time. So just believe me when I tell you…” Anya teleports out of the cell into the hallway. “…these things are real, they’re dangerous, and they’re coming.”
A police officer sits in his patrol car in front of the station, going over his reports. The cup of coffee sitting on his dashboard starts to vibrate. There’s a flash of light outside the car, and he looks toward it in time to see Willow materialize out of a lightning streaked whirlwind. He gets out of his car, and moves toward her. “Listen, I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but just—”
Willow looks at him. “Take a nap.” The cop collapses to the ground.
Willow looks up at the bricked over windows on the second floor of the police station. Her attention focuses on the window directly over the main entrance.
Anya is still trying to talk the guard into letting Jonathan and Andrew out of their cell when the whole station starts to vibrate. One of the bricks in the bricked over window on their cell wall is ripped loose. Jonathan and Andrew cringe back, as far from the wall as they can get in their cell.
The guard tells the three of them not to move. “You’ll be safe here.” He exits from the cell block to see what’s going on.
“Are you even listening?” Anya calls after him. “This is the one place they won’t be safe!”
Cops come pouring out of the police station to see what’s going on. They see Willow standing motionless in the street, with her black hair and eyes, staring up at the wall above the door. Bricks and plaster rain down around them.
When some of the cops move toward her, Willow holds out her hand toward them. “Back off!” The cops go flying.
Willow returns her attention to the bricked over window.
Andrew and Jonathan cringe away from the widening hole in their cell wall.
“Stop it! Just stop!” says Andrew. “Why is she doing this? Tell her we didn’t do anything.”
“Yes, we did,” says Jonathan. “We signed on. We teamed up. We wanted to see where our plans would take us. Well, take a look. This is it!”
“Maybe for you.” Andrew asks Anya to teleport them out of there, but she tells them she can’t.
More cops come running out of the police station. They form a semi-circle around Willow with their guns drawn, but they don’t shoot.
Buffy stops at the corner of the alley beside the police station, and peers around it. She sees Willow in the street surrounded by cops with their guns drawn. She goes back into the alley, to a side door into the police station. She breaks it open.
The last of the cops in the police station run toward the front door as Buffy kicks open a door from a side hallway. She runs to the stairway up to the cell block level.
Willow has ripped a hole in the wall large enough for her to pass through. She spreads her arms and rises into the air. She floats up to the hole into Jonathan and Andrew’s cell.
Willow passes through the hole and looks around. Jonathan and Andrew are gone. She sees that the bars of the cell door have been bent apart. “Buffy.”
Not everyone is gone though. Anya is still standing in the cellblock hallway. “Willow, just stop for a second and listen to—”
Willow cuts Anya off with a blast of lightning that knocks her back against the wall. Anya slumps to the floor.
Willow turns back to the hole she made in the cell wall and opens her mouth. She lets loose a deafening banshee scream.
Willow’s scream rips through the air. Jonathan and Andrew cover their ears to try and block it out in the alley beside the police station. Buffy grimaces from the force of it. She peers out of the alley at the cops still gathered in front of the station, and tells Jonathan and Andrew they’re going to make a run for it.
“Are you kidding? She’s like Dark Phoenix up there,” says Andrew. “You expect us just to outrun her?”
“Pretty much,” says Buffy.
A police car pulls out of the alley, and stops beside them. It’s being driven by Xander. “Get in.”
Jonathan opens the rear door, and he and Andrew pile in. Buffy runs around the back to the other side. Xander is already moving. She opens the front passenger side door, and jumps in on the run. They speed away from the police station.
Buffy looks back out of the police car to see if anyone’s chasing them. There isn’t for now. She asks Andrew and Jonathan if they’re all right.
“All right” is too strong a term, but they’re uninjured. Andrew wants to know where Buffy’s taking them. She doesn’t really know. Someplace safe they can hide until she can find some way to stop Willow.
“Run and hide?” asks Andrew. “That’s your brilliant plan?”
“I don’t believe this,” says Jonathan.
“Boys, if you don’t knock it off, I will pull this car over, and you can just walk to your painful deaths from here,” says Xander. Andrew and Jonathan shut up.
Willow walks out the front doors of the police station and looks around.
Jonathan doesn’t understand why they’re still alive. Willow’s a powerful witch. “Why doesn’t she just, you know, wave her arms and make us dead?”
“Because she doesn’t want you dead,” says Buffy. “She wants to kill you.”
“But we didn’t do anything,” says Andrew. Buffy leans around and punches him in the nose. “Ow!”
Xander thinks that Jonathan has a point. Why isn’t Willow right there with them. Buffy hopes it’s because she’s still figuring out how to use her power, or what she can really do. They don’t know either. At the moment they can just keep running.
“I still can’t believe that was Willow,” says Jonathan. “I mean, I’ve known her almost as long as you guys. Willow was—you know…she packed her own lunches and wore floods and was always…just Willow.”
The police car suddenly lurches forward.
“What was that?” asks Jonathan.
Xander looks in the rearview mirror. “Just Willow.”
Willow stands on the roof of the cab of an eighteen wheel truck that bears down on the police car, and rams it again. In the cab the driver struggles to regain control of his truck.
“Okay, any ideas?” asks Xander.
“Drive faster,” says Buffy.
Xander floors it.
The police car starts to pull away from the truck. Willow exerts more power, and the truck bears down on the back of the police car again. The rear bumper is nearly torn off, and it drags along the road, sending out a shower of sparks. The truck makes contact again, and this time the police car doesn’t bounce away. The truck pushes the police car even faster down the road.
“This is faster,” says Xander.
Jonathan looks back at the truck. “She knows you’re in this car, too, right? Right?” He doesn’t get any answer.
Willow staggers on top of the cab of the truck. It starts to slow down. The police car once again starts to pull away, trailing the sparking bumper.
Jonathan looks back. “She’s draining.”
“She’s what-ing?” asks Xander.
Jonathan tells him to just keep going.
Willow collapses onto her knees on top of the truck cab. The driver regains control and jerks the wheel, causing the truck to swerve sharply, almost throwing Willow from the roof. She hangs on for her life as the truck comes to a stop.
The police car speeds away. The trailing bumper finally falls off.
Dawn paces nervously around Spike’s crypt.
Clem stands by a table sampling chips. He likes the flavour of the nacho-cheese ones, but he finds the texture too hard on his tongue. He gives them a seven. Maybe a seven-five. He looks up at Dawn. “And you think this is dumb, don’t you?”
Actually, Dawn thinks this is one of the better taste tests she’s been to, but she doesn’t want to be just waiting in the crypt. “Clem, look at me. Do I look weak to you? Or incapable?”
“Heck no!”
“So why am I stuck here?”
“No good reason I can see.” Clem sighs. “I’m still real sorry about what happened. If there is anything I can do to help, just name it.”
“Anything?”
Clem sees the look in Dawn’s eyes. He really doesn’t like it. It’s going to get both of them into trouble, and he doesn’t like that. “’Cause your sister’s the Slayer. I’m a demon. That’s real good incentive to get along with her.”
“I need a demon to help me,” says Dawn. “Spike would have.”
“Spike’s gone,” says Clem.
Spike stands shirtless and shoeless in the African cave.
“You understand, then?” asks the demon from the shadows.
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s not like you haven’t been clear about it, O Great, Mysterious One. This is a test. I don’t get what I want unless I pass said test. And since your pad is decked out gladiator-style and no number-two pencils have been provided, I guess we’re not starting with the written.”
A very large and muscular figure steps out of the shadows. Spike looks up at him. “Oh, here we go, then. Just me and the walking action figure. I’m venturing this would be the kill-or-be-killed type of situation, then?”
“To the death,” says the demon.
“Right,” says Spike. “Here we are now. Entertain us.”
The man smacks his fists together, and they burst into flames.
“Son of a—” Spike’s outburst is cut off by a flaming fist to his face.
Dawn and Clem walk down a deserted industrial alley. She asks him if he senses anything. This is where Rack’s place was last time she was there.
Clem doesn’t feel anything. He turns around. “Let’s go home.”
Dawn grabs him. Clem doesn’t feel anything because Rack’s place moves around.
Clem knows that. Rack moves around because he’s shady. “A bad element comes down here.”
“I get that, but Willow’s part of it now,” says Dawn. “She is the element. If she isn’t around somewhere, Rack may know where she is, which is why we need to talk to him.”
Clem really doesn’t like that idea. Rack isn’t partial to the floppy eared, but he isn’t going to abandon Dawn. He still wants to know what Dawn plans to do if they find Rack. Even if he does know were Willow is he’s not going to give the information away. “He’s going to want something.”
“I have money.”
“That’s not the kind of something he’s going to want,” says Clem. “Rack likes…little girls.”
“I am not a little girl.”
Clem really doesn’t like this idea. “I’m supposed to keep you safe, and this whole thing is… I mean, even if you find Willow, you really think you can stop her?”
Anya lets the others into the Magic Box. Xander thanks her for getting there so quickly, it’s a big help.
“Once again, Xander in need of big help,” says Anya bitterly.
Xander lets it pass. He asks her if she can still sense Willow. “Knowing her location would be a real big…comfort right about now.”
“No, I can’t,” says Anya. “Which means, whatever she’s feeling has gone way beyond simple vengeance.”
“Did I mention me needing the comfort?”
Buffy doesn’t want to spend too much time there. They need to grab what they can and get out. This is going to be one of the first places Willow will look for them.
“Then what are we doing here?” asks Andrew. “You know, I could summon a demon that would kill her.”
Buffy whirls around and glares at him.
“And I could smack you so hard, your eyeballs’ll switch sockets,” says Xander.
Buffy points to the table covered with blank books, and tells Andrew and Jonathan to sit down. She tells Anya and Xander that they have to find some sort of magicks to slow Willow down. Xander doesn’t think Willow left them anything.
Anya has pulled a key out of the cash register, and pulls a wooden box out from under the counter. “Not everything.” She unlocks the box, and pulls out an ancient book.
“What is it?” asks Xander.
“Um, book of protection spells,” says Anya. “Anti-magic. Our last resort.”
“You think you can work this stuff?”
Anya flips through the book. “Ah, okay…well, good news is, the text is intact. Bad news is, I can’t read a word of it. It’s like in ancient Sumarian or something.” The pages of the book are full of cuniform writing.
Jonathan gets to his feet, and moves toward her. “Could I take a look at it?”
“Shut up,” says Buffy.
“Right.” Jonathan turns toward the table, but then he turns back. “I just thought, you know, as long as you’re protecting us, the least I could do is—”
“I’m not protecting you, Jonathan,” says Buffy. “None of us are. We’re doing this for Willow. The only reason it happens to be your lucky day, is because Willow kills you, she crosses a line. I lose a friend. And I hate losing.”
“I get that,” says Jonathan. “It’s just…you know she’s running out of power, right? I can tell. I can practically feel it. I’ve dabbled in magicks. Running that hot for that long, it’s just a matter of time before you got to recharge, no matter how juiced up you are.”
“Thank you,” says Buffy. “Now do you remember that thing we talked about?”
“About me shutting up?” Buffy nods. Jonathan goes back to the table and sits down on the bench beside Andrew. “Right.”
“Buffy, let’s say this works and we stop Willow from working the hoodoo for a minute,” says Xander. “What then?”
“I talk to her,” says Buffy.
“Great. And say what?”
Buffy pulls off her hat, and rubs her hand through her hair. “Look, whatever she’s going to do, she starts with those two. They’re the line she cannot cross. And if she is running low on magicks, then she’s probably somewhere right now trying to get it all back.”
The door into Rack’s sanctum opens. Rack looks up from the rune cards he’s laying out. “Hey, babe. I been waiting for you.” Willow closes the door behind her. “Guess the rehab didn’t take, huh? That’s the way it goes sometimes.” He gets to his feet, and slowly walks toward her. “But I got to say, I could feel you coming a mile away, the power you got. And you know something, sweetness? I liked it.”
Rack walks around Willow. “When you first came to me, you were just a little slip of a girl.” He rubs his hands along her shoulders while Willow stands impassively. “Look at you now, all…growed up. So full of dark juice. And you still taste like strawberries. Only now…you’re ripe.”
Rack moves around in front of Willow. “You came because you want something…don’t you? I thought so. So tell me, Strawberry, what on this earth do you want?” He brings his hand up and caresses her cheek.
Willow’s hand caresses Rack’s cheek, echoing his touch on her face. “Just to take a little tour.” She grabs Rack’s chin, and presses her other hand against his chest.
Rack grasps in pain as Willow sucks the power out of him. He rises off the floor as Willow sucks him dry.
Clem comes through the wall into Rack’s waiting room. Dawn follows him in. “Yay, Clem, making with the demon senses. I knew you could find this place.”
Clem looks around. He really doesn’t want to be there, and he doesn’t think Dawn should be either.
“It’ll only take a minute. Come on.” Dawn moves toward the door into Rack’s sanctum. She notices Clem’s still hanging back. “You want to wait here?”
“If that works for you.”
“Be right back.” Dawn goes through the door.
Dawn slowly enters Rack’s sanctum. “Willow?” She turns around, and comes face to face with the desiccated body of Rack. He’s floating upside down, and slowly spinning.
Dawn screams and dashes back toward the door. Willow appears in front of it. “Hey, cutie.”
Willow asks Dawn what she’s doing there. This is kind of a bad time.
“You look terrible,” says Dawn.
“Do I?” asks Willow. Her skin is pallid white, veins are visible on her face, and her lips are blue, and dry to the point that they’re cracking.
“You’re back on the magicks,” says Dawn.
“No, honey, I am the magicks.”
“Did you kill that guy?”
Willow glances toward Rack’s floating corpse. “It’s an improvement, believe me.”
Dawn tries to leave again, but Willow stops her. She doesn’t want Dawn running off to tell Buffy where she is. Dawn tries to talk to her, but Willow doesn’t want to listen.
“I miss Tara, too!” says Dawn. “But this—what you’re doing here—this is not the way to go! You’re only going to make things worse! But I promise, it’s not too late to—”
“You miss her?” asks Willow.
“Yes!”
“Did you cry?” Dawn is taken aback by the question. “Of course you did. I get that. I understand the crying. You cry because you’re human. But you weren’t always.”
“Yes, I was!”
“No, please. You’re telling me you don’t remember?” Willow steps toward Dawn. “You used to be some mystic ball of energy. Maybe that’s why you’re crying all the time, Dawnie, ’cause you don’t belong here. Want to go back? End the pain? You’ll be happier. I’ll be happier. We’ll all be a lot happier without listening to the constant whining.”
Dawn backs away. “Willow, stop.”
Willow keeps coming, backing Dawn up against the wall. “‘Mom. Buffy. Tara. Waah!’ It’s time you go back to being the little energy ball. No more tears, Dawnie.” Power starts to build around her.
The door into Rack’s sanctum slams open. “I think you need to get away from her,” says Buffy.
Anya stands behind the counter with the book of protection spells, writing notes on a pad of paper. Xander looks over her shoulder with a Sumerian dictionary in hand. “You’re too close,” says Anya.
“How am I supposed to read?” asks Xander.
Anya doesn’t think it makes much difference. She’s staring right at this stuff, and she can’t read it. So far she’s figured out that the first word might be “the,” or maybe “towards.” “I can’t do this. I’m in retail. Stupid ancient Sumerian.”
Jonathan gets up from the table. “I’m pretty sure it’s Babylonian. The text is similar, but the dialect is completely different.”
Xander closes his dictionary. “Great. Babylonian. Thanks a bushel. But unless you can read Babylonian, why don’t you sit back down?”
Jonathan goes back and sits beside Andrew. Andrew doesn’t understand why Jonathan is trying to help Xander and Anya.
“Because they’re saving our lives, you moron.”
“Uh-huh. And what then?” asks Andrew quietly. “Even if they kill that wicca bitch, you think they’re just going to let us walk? They own us.”
Jonathan asks what else they can do. Andrew tells him to look around. They’re in a magic shop. There’s lots of stuff here they can use to overpower Xander and Anya, and get away. “This is the best chance we’re going to get to make it out of here.”
“And do what?”
“Start over,” says Andrew. “We can be the Duo, you and me. You can even be the leader. I swear, I’ll take orders. I like taking orders. Just tell me what to do.”
“You want an order?” Jonathan grabs Andrew by the shirt, picks him up off the bench, and pushes him against the book shelf behind him. “Grow up!”
“Hey, now play nice fellas, or you’ll break our concentration,” says Xander.
“Which means no protection spell,” says Anya.
“And Willow makes you two boneless chickens, skinless, too.”
“And then what?” asks Andrew. “Think your little witch buddy’s going to stop with us? You saw her. She’s a truck-driving Magic Mama, and we’ve got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers, and not one of you bunch has the midiclorians to stop her!”
Xander waves a finger at Andrew. “You’ve never had any tiny bit of sex, have you?”
“The annoying virgin has a point,” says Anya. “What if Willow filets their souls and comes after us?”
“She won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“We’re her friends, Anya, her family,” says Xander. “She would never hurt us.”
“She tried to use you for a hood ornament, Xander. She doesn’t care if you live or die.”
“Guess you two finally have something in common.”
Anya goes back to studying her text. “I care if you live or die, Xander. I’m just not sure which one I want.”
“Again with the comfort,” says Xander. “Look, we both know things might get ugly at Wiccapalooza, and if it gets really bad…”
“Let me guess: you’ll propose?”
“I need to know if you’re going to turn on me, use this little shindig as an excuse for some sweet revenge.”
“There is nothing in this world that would give me greater or more lasting satisfaction than to reap bloody vengeance upon you, Xander Harris, but I can’t,” says Anya. “Not officially, not magically. So smile. It’s your lucky day. You got away with it. I can’t hurt you.”
“Right, ’cause you varnishing the table with Spike, how could that possibly have hurt?” asks Xander. “It may have chaffed.”
“That wasn’t vengeance. It was solace.” Both Anya and Xander stop, and look at each other. Anya turns back to her book. “Look…I really can’t hurt you, so I’m just going to have to settle for hating you.”
“If that’s what you need to do.”
“Don’t!” says Anya. “You don’t get to play the martyr. None of this would be happening if it weren’t for you.”
“You think I don’t know that? You think I’m the hero of this piece?” asks Xander. “I saw the gun…before Warren raised it. I—I saw it, and I couldn’t move. He shot two of my friends before I could even… You want me to know how useless I am? That it’s my fault? Thanks. Already got the memo.”
Anya turns back to her translation work. “I was talking about us.”
Buffy slowly walks across the room toward Willow and Dawn. “You need to back down a minute and think, Will.”
“I wasn’t going to hurt her, Buzzkill,” says Willow.
“She tried to turn me back!” says Dawn.
Buffy keeps moving toward them. “You’re attacking the people who love you now?”
“Only the ones in my way,” says Willow.
“That’s not… You need help.”
“I’m doing fine on my own, thanks.”
Buffy gets close enough, and grabs Dawn by the arm. “Dawn, get out of here.” She pulls her away from Willow, and pushes her toward the door. “Go!”
The door slams shut before Dawn gets to it. She can’t open it.
“Don’t,” says Willow. “We’re all friends.”
“Willow, I know what you want to do,” says Buffy “But you have to listen to me. The forces inside you are incredibly powerful. They’re strong, but you’re stronger. You have to remember you’re still Willow.”
“Let me tell you something about Willow. She’s a loser,” says Willow. “She always has been. People picked on Willow in junior high school, high school, up until college. With her stupid mousey ways. And now Willow’s a junkie. The only thing Willow was ever good for—the only thing I had going for me—were the moments, just moments, when Tara would look at me, and I was wonderful. And that will never happen again.”
“I know this hurts, bad, but Willow, if you let loose with the magicks, it’ll never end.”
Willow smiles. “Promise?”
“You don’t want that.”
“Why not?”
Dawn comes back and stands beside her sister.
“Because you lose everything,” says Buffy. “Your friends, yourself. Willow, if you let this control you, then the world goes away and all of us with it. There’s so much to live for. Will, there’s too much—”
“Oh, please!” says Willow. “This is your pitch? Buffy, you hate it here as much as I do. I’m just more honest about it.”
“That’s not true.”
“You’re trying to sell me on the world?” asks Willow. “The one where you lie to your friends when you’re not trying to kill them?” The room starts to slowly revolve around Willow, Dawn and Buffy. “You screw a vampire just to feel? And insane asylums are the comfy alternative? This world? Buffy, it’s me. I know you were happier when you were in the ground. The only time you were ever at peace in your whole life was when you were dead. Until Willow brought you back. You know, with magic.”
The room stops spinning, and Buffy blinks and staggers a bit. They’re in the Magic Box. Xander blinks in surprise from behind the counter.
“Aw. Sorry, the trip can be kind of rough if you’re, you know, not me,” says Willow.
Dawn collapses to the floor. Buffy instantly bends down to check on her, and her dizziness makes her collapse too.
Willow turns toward the table. “Jonathan. Andrew. You boys like magic, don’t you?” They jump to their feet. “Abracadabra!” Willow lets loose a blast of death magic from her hands, directly at their chests.
Willow’s blast of power dissipates, and everyone is surprised that Andrew and Jonathan are still on their feet.
“Okay, didn’t see that coming,” says Willow. “You guys want to take it slow, I can do that, too. Ask Warren.” She lets loose another blast of power. It stops just short of Andrew and Jonathan, blocked by an invisible shield.
Anya is standing against the wall, around the corner in the upper section of the Magic Box, clutching the book of protection spells in her hands, and chanting quietly.
“Goo-roo-meh ning-in-meh,
Noo-gull-gull-ah goo-roo-meh,
Ning-in-meh, che-meh-dul-dell-eh.” 1
“Let’s get out of here,” says Jonathan. He and Andrew make a break for the front door, but Willow quickly moves to block them. They reverse direction and head for the open door into the side alley.
The door slams shut before they get to it. “No, no. Stay. I mean, we’re just getting started. I’ve got big party plans,” says Willow.
Jonathan and Andrew grab a couple of swords off the wall beside them, and hold them out in front of them.
Buffy and Dawn climb back to their feet. Xander tries to tell Willow to stop.
“Guys, come on. I’m just getting wood for the violence here. And you know what they say: ‘if at first you don’t succeed…’” Willow lets loose another blast of power at Jonathan and Andrew.
Spike’s face and chest are covered with scorch marks from Flame’s fists. Flame punches at him again, and Spike catches his fist in his hand. Spike’s flesh sizzles, and he pushes Flame away. He shakes his hand in pain. “Bad move! Bad move! Bad move!”
Flame attacks again. This time Spike deflects him, and Flame falls the ground. Spike gives him a kick in the crotch that lifts him off the ground, and rolls him over onto his face. Spike sees his chance, and grabs Flame’s head. He gives it a sharp twist, snapping his neck.
Spike staggers back to his feet, barely able to stand. “Looks like local boy loses.”
“So it would appear,” says the demon from the darkness.
“Good on me, then. I get what I came for. I passed, right?”
“Indeed, you have passed the first stage of the test.”
“Right,” says Spike. “I get— Wait. First stage?”
The demon laughs.
“Bugger!”
Jonathan and Andrew are still untouched by Willow’s death blasts. “Damn, that is one effective counter spell,” says Willow. “Won’t keep you alive, though.”
Buffy tries to tell Willow to stop, but Willow continues to ignore her. She thinks she knows what’s going on. She thinks that Jonathan and Andrew have performed some sort of spell on themselves which makes them immune to magick. She thinks it’s cute.
“Will, back off before somebody gets hurt,” says Buffy.
“How about I back off right after?” Willow turns her attention back to Andrew and Jonathan. She’s curious about which of them worked the mojo, not that she expects it to do them any good in the long run.
Anya is still chanting quietly.
Willow knows how to get around this. “Just because I can’t do magicks to you, doesn’t mean I can’t do them on myself.” She directs her hands toward herself. “Give me strength!” she says in Latin. Power crackles around her. “Now I’m pretty sure I’m strong enough to beat you to death.”
Jonathan and Andrew try to put the research table between them and Willow. She tosses it aside with one hand, and steps toward them.
Buffy steps into Willow’s path. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Not a problem.” Willow punches Buffy, and knocks her flying into the magazine rack.
Buffy gets back to her feet, and steps back into Willow’s way. “I said I didn’t want to…” She hits Willow with a backhanded punch that knocks her through a glass display case. “…didn’t say I wouldn’t.”
Xander herds Jonathan and Andrew toward the front door. Jonathan is still worried about Willow, but Xander figures Buffy can handle her. He grabs Dawn and pulls her along with them too.
“Are you sure?” asks Dawn.
“That’s why we’re leaving,” says Xander. He pauses at the top of the stairs. “Anya?”
“I can’t,” says Anya. “I have to stay here to keep the spell going on Willow.”
“No, but—”
“Go!” says Anya. “Do something right.” She goes back to chanting.
Willow sees her quarry getting away, and tries to go after them. Buffy grabs her and throws her toward the back of the shop. Willow slowly gets back to her feet, and looks at Buffy. “So…here we are.” She smiles.
“Are we really going to do this?” asks Buffy.
“Come on, this is a huge deal for me,” says Willow. “Six years as a sideman. Now I get to be the Slayer.”
“A killer isn’t a Slayer. Being a Slayer means something you can’t conceive of.”
Willow sighs. “Oh, Buffy. You really need to have every square inch of your ass kicked.”
“Then show me what you got, and I’ll show you what a Slayer really is.”
Willow attacks Buffy with a quick series of punches and kicks. Buffy fends her off and attacks back. Willow catches Buffy’s fist and throws her against the book shelves.
Xander, Dawn, Jonathan and Andrew move quickly down the street away from the Magic Box. Jonathan and Andrew are still carrying the swords they took off the wall. Andrew wants to know where they’re going.
“Someplace safe,” says Dawn.
Jonathan would like a more specific answer. Dawn looks at Xander.
Xander isn’t happy. “I don’t know.”
Buffy picks herself up off the floor. Willow holds out her hand, and slides the ladder up to the loft across the floor toward Buffy, pinning her to the book shelves. Anya’s anti-magic chant doesn’t stop her from doing that, or from magically throwing an assortment of books, and other objects at Buffy’s head.
Willow turns away and starts back toward the front door. Buffy breaks free, and tackles Willow from behind.
“Get off, superbitch!” Willow throws Buffy off her, into the glass counter, shattering it.
Buffy comes back and grabs Willow again. They exchange another round of punches and kicks. Buffy grabs Willow’s arm and holds her. “I can help you stop.”
Willow breaks free, and punches Buffy to the floor. “I thought you were going to show me what a Slayer was.”
Dawn, Xander, Andrew and Jonathan run down an alley. Jonathan stumbles to a stop. He’s too exhausted to keep going. He needs to catch his breath.
“If you want to keep breathing, you got to keep moving,” says Xander.
Andrew doesn’t think they should be running through alleys. They need to get out of town. “Mexico. We should go to Mexico.”
Xander isn’t planning on letting them go anywhere. They are going to hide until they get the all clear from Buffy.
“Yeah, and what if the Slayer’s dead already?” asks Andrew. “We’re just supposed to sit around waiting for Sabrina to show up and disembowel us?”
“You do what I say to—”
Xander stops when Andrew places the tip of his sword under his chin. “I don’t think so.”
Buffy punches Willow and throws her through some shelves up into the upper level of the Magic Box.
Willow sits up and sees Anya, still holding the book, and chanting. She gets to her feet. “Well, hey, isn’t that interesting? Anya’s still here.”
Buffy charges at Willow, but Willow tosses her aside. Buffy smashes into a table, and doesn’t get up. Willow turns back to Anya. “Looks like I’ve been beating on the wrong gal.”
Xander tries to get Andrew to put the sword down, before he does something too drastic, but Andrew is in no mood to listen. “Oh, no way. I’m not going to die because of something I didn’t even do.”
“You’re not going to die,” says Xander.
Dawn steps up beside Xander. “Leave him alone.”
Jonathan raises his sword and puts the tip of it against Andrew’s neck, just below his ear. “Let him go, Andrew.” Andrew doesn’t move. “You heard me.”
Andrew pauses for a moment. “You let me go first.”
Jonathan has no intention of doing that. Andrew has to let Xander go.
“It’s your move,” says Andrew.
“No,” says Jonathan, “Yours.”
“I’m not moving,” says Andrew. “I’m not going to budge till—” Jonathan presses his sword a little harder against Andrew’s neck. “Right now! Ow!” He lowers his sword.
Jonathan lowers his sword. “Xander’s right. We’re not leaving Sunnydale. When this is over, you and I are going back to jail to do our time.”
Willow cuts off Anya’s chanting by grabbing her by the throat and lifting her off the floor.
“Help me! Help me!” cries Anya. Buffy is still lying unconscious on the floor. “You’re hurting me.”
“You can’t block my spells if you can’t chant. And you can’t chant if you’re sleeping.” Willow tosses Anya across the Magic Box, against the book shelves on the other side. She slumps to the floor.
Buffy gets back to her feet and faces Willow.
“Buffy, I got to tell you, I get it now. The Slayer thing really isn’t about the violence. It’s about the power.” Willow lets loose a blast of magical energy that knocks Buffy across Giles’ desk. She lies on the floor unable to move. Willow moves toward her. “And there’s no one in the world with the power to stop me now.”
A blast of green energy hits Willow and knocks her most of the way to the back of the Magic Box. She slides across the floor, and looks up, with blood running out of her nose to see what hit her.
Giles is standing in the open doorway of the Magic Box. “I’d like to test that theory.”
| Who or What | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| Rack | His sanctum | Sucked dry by Willow |