Introduction
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| Never Leave Me | Showtime |
Xander sweeps up broken glass in the living room of Buffy’s house. “It’s a loop. Like the mummy hand. I’m doomed to replace these windows for all eternity. Maybe we should just board these things up until things are less hellmouthy.”
Anya is sitting on the sofa with Dawn. She holds up a book. “Nothing…and nothing.” She waves a couple of other books in the air. “Cliff notes to nothing. Nothing abridged.”
Willow is sitting with her iBook at the research table at the back of the living room with Buffy. “Yeah, my search isn’t turning anything up either. Are you sure this thing called itself the First?”
“Pretty sure,” says Buffy. “It claimed to be the original evil, the one that came before anything else.”
“Please. How many times have I heard that line in my demon days,” asks Anya. “‘I’m so rotten they don’t even have a word for it. I’m bad. Baddy, bad, bad, bad. Does it make you horny?’” Everyone gives her a look. “Or terrified. Whatever.”
“It wasn’t a line,” says Buffy. “When I came up against this thing it… I felt it. It was…ancient and enormous. It nearly got Angel to kill himself. And if we don’t rescue Spike soon, God only knows what the First will get him to do.”
Xander looks at Andrew, who’s tied in a chair in the corner. “I wish Sleeping Ugly would come to. He’s been out all night.”
“Yes, he was just starting to squeal when the spooky SWAT attacked,” says Anya. “Said the First was holed up at the Seal of Danzar-something.”
Dawn gets up off the sofa and walks toward Andrew. “Maybe he’s just faking so he doesn’t have to answer any more questions.” She slaps Andrew, hard. He doesn’t react. “Hmm. Or maybe he’s in a fugue state.” She pulls back her hand to hit him again.
“Dawn,” says Buffy.
“What?”
“He’ll come to when he comes to,” says Buffy. “Keep reading. If we’re going to rescue Spike, we need to figure out how to fight this thing.”
Dawn turns away, and walks back toward the sofa. “Anya gets to hit him,” she grumbles.
“Ohh!” Buffy is getting frustrated. She closes the book she’s reading and puts in back in a stack with a bunch of others. “Hand me the Watcher’s Codex again.”
Someone hands Buffy a book. “Can I get you anything else, Baby?” asks her mother. “How about some tea?”
Buffy looks up at her mother, smiling down at her. “Mom?” She sighs and closes her eyes. “You’re not real.”
Joyce leans toward Buffy. “Okay. Is that, uh, slang, like, ‘you’re not for real,’ or…?”
“You’re the First,” says Buffy. No one else in the room is reacting in any way to either Joyce, or Buffy talking to her.
“Oh, Baby, you’re so tired you’re not making sense,” says Joyce. “Maybe you should get some sleep. You can’t win against this thing, not if you don’t rest.”
“Stop,” says Buffy. “Stop being like this. It’s a lie.”
“I don’t want to scare you, but I want you to take care,” says Joyce. “You need, to wake, up.”
“What?”
“You’re dreaming,” says Xander. “Buff, wake up!”
Buffy lifts her head off the table, and looks around. “Did you see it?”
Xander is leaning against the table. “There’s nothing to see. You were just doing a little dream talking, that’s all. You okay? What did you see?”
“Nothing,” says Buffy. “It was nothing.”
The primeval vampire that the First rose from the Seal of Danthalzar drags Spike across a cave floor. The First’s Harbingers can be heard chanting in the background.
Spike is pale, and the symbols carved on his bare chest are unhealed. The vampire drops Spike by a pool of water.
The First, looking like William the Bloody in his black leather duster, steps out of the shadows. “Go on. Give him a kick then. You always liked that, didn’t you?” It transforms into Drusilla. “Kick a dolly when he’s down. That was always your style.” She sits down to watch.
The vampire kicks Spike in the ribs, and Spike grunts with pain.
“Has buckets of energy, poor dear,” says Drusilla. “Been laying in wait for his moment, since before the bug walked. There, there, pet.” She stands up and clicks her tongue at the primeval vampire. “Soon as the moon comes, you’ll have your carnage.”
The vampire growls in anticipation.
“Little girls tear so easily…like pink paper,” says Drusilla. “Till then, we’ll have our way with this one. Got it coming, he does.” She starts to hum, and bounces up and down.
The vampire growls, and kicks Spike again, harder. Spike cries out in pain.
Andrew gets a face full of water. He lolls his head a bit, but otherwise doesn’t react.
Dawn and Anya stand looking at him. Anya has an empty glass in her hand. Morning light shines in through the hole where the living room window had been.
“That was something,” says Anya.
“Maybe if you threw hot water on him?” suggests Dawn.
“Good thinking!” says Anya. The start toward the kitchen, but they immediately detour toward the sofa when they see Buffy come into the room. They sit down and look guilty.
“Nothing,” says Dawn.
“What?” asks Buffy.
“Oh. Um, I—I thought you were going to ask us what we were doing.”
“No, I was going to ask—”
Andrew starts to sputter and cough. Dawn jumps to her feet. “Oh! Look who’s awake!” She quickly walks across the living room toward him.
Anya follows her. “Silly Andrew.” She slaps water off his face. “You drooled all over yourself.”
Andrew looks around. “I’m— I was about to be dead.” He looks up at Buffy. “You saved me.”
Buffy crosses her arms and looks down at Andrew. “For the time being, but if you don’t tell us what we need to know, then I’m going to offer you to the First on a platter and let him chop you into tiny pieces.”
Andrew looks scared for a moment, but then he looks puzzled. “The first what?”
“The name of the evil thing that pretended to be Warren to get you to kill Jonathan,” says Anya.
“Oh,” says Andrew, “not very ominous sounding.”
“No, it is if you understand the context,” says Dawn.
“No, evil names should be, like, Lex or Voldemort—”
“Hey!” says Buffy. “I was intimidating here.”
“Oh, sorry,” says Andrew. “Go ahead.”
“Forget it,” says Buffy. “Where’s the seal?”
Andrew leads Buffy, Xander and Dawn through the school basement. He takes them to a door. Andrew isn’t sure where the seal is. They’ve been going in circles.
“Maybe you should get sure.” Xander shoves Andrew through the door. “I’m sick of all the run around with you—” He stops when he sees the Seal of Danthalzar on the floor of the room, with dirt piled up around it. “Whoa, check out the goat-headed badness.”
They all look down at the seal. “What’s it do?” asks Buffy.
“I don’t know,” says Andrew. “Something not good. It didn’t work ’cause…there wasn’t enough blood.” He sees the looks the others are giving him. “Okay!” He turns around and tries to leave but Buffy grabs him.
Dawn looks at a large wheel shaped object leaning against the wall. “There’s blood on this. Lots. Looks like the First made another sacrifice…or a music video.”
“The seal could have been activated,” says Buffy. “Bet that’s what the First needed Spike for.”
Andrew looks at the wheel. “That wasn’t there before. I had nothing to do with that.”
“Thanks for clearing that up,” says Xander. “Because otherwise we might have thought you’re up to no good here at the satanic manhole cover. You killed your best friend!”
“He’s in a place of joy and peace,” says Andrew. “He told me.”
“No. Nobody told you,” says Xander. “You got tricked by a fake ghost.”
“Boys, can we save the encounter session? We need to cover this thing up.” Buffy starts handing out the shovels that are leaning against the wall. “Whatever it does, we can’t leave it exposed like this.” They all go to work shovelling dirt over the seal.
Xander escorts Andrew out through the basement. “Man, this place gives me the creeps,” says Andrew. “It’s like in Wonder Woman, issue 297/299.”
Xander smiles. “‘Catacombs’— Yeah, with the skeletons.”
“That was cool!” they say together.
Xander suddenly looks disgusted with himself. “Move it!” He gives Andrew a shove toward the stairs. “This way.”
Buffy and Dawn follow along behind Xander and Andrew, until Principal Wood steps out of a side corridor behind them, and sees them. “Buffy?”
Buffy and Dawn spin around. “Hey!” says Buffy.
“Hey,” says Wood. “I thought that you were, um—”
“Sick?” says Dawn. “She was. Oh, vomiting and oozing from various places, and—”
“Yeah, I remember,” says Wood. “So, please, don’t go on.”
“Oh, but now it’s amazing!” says Dawn. “The doctor gave her some cream—”
“Pills,” says Buffy over top of Dawn’s cream line. “…and a cream, and I’m all better.” She looks quizzically at the shovel that Wood is carrying.
Wood is also looking rather disheveled, the top buttons of his shirt unbuttoned, and his tie loose. “Oh, yeah. Um, apparently somebody left this in the courtyard, and I was just returning it.”
“That’s some full-service principaling,” says Buffy.
“I try.” Wood is looking at the shovel that Buffy is carrying.
“Oh, I was down here helping Dawn with a school project,” says Buffy.
“For science,” says Dawn.
“We buried a time capsule.”
“‘Hello, people of the future.’” says Dawn. “‘Kids today like Red Bull and, uh, Jackass!’”
Buffy thinks that they better be going. Wood tells her that if she’s feeling better, he could use her back at work. “I’ve been wait-listing kids who really want to see you.”
“Oh, yeah,” says Buffy. “I’m sorry, you know, I’ve been ill and stuff. I’ll be there tomorrow. No problem. Uh, one hundred percent ooze-free.”
“Good,” says Wood.
“Okay,” says Buffy.
Wood turns away, and walks off down the hall. Buffy and Dawn head the other direction. Buffy and Wood keep casting suspicious looks over their shoulders at each other.
Buffy, Xander and Dawn return home. Dawn goes to work on Willow’s computer to see if she can find any information about the Seal of Danthalzar, while Willow and Anya start to work on a locator spell at the other end of the dining room table to see if they can find the First.
“Why don’t you go get some rest?” asks Xander. “You haven’t slept for, like, two days. We’ll call you if we find anything.”
“No, I couldn’t sleep,” says Buffy. “Too much going on.”
“It’ll be okay, Buff,” says Xander. “We’ve faced this kind of stuff before.”
“You didn’t see the First,” says Buffy. “I did. I—I felt it. It was like—”
The bowl with Willow’s spell ingredients suddenly flares. Anya is knocked away against the wall by the blast of power. Glowing red smoke flows from the bowl into Willow’s nostrils. Her hair and eyes turn black. A fierce wind blows through the dining room. Power flows out of Willow, taking on the insect like form of the First that had shown itself to Buffy before.
“Will!” cries Buffy.
The First flows back into Willow, and a blast of energy knocks Buffy off her feet.
“You only make me stronger!” shouts Willow.
Xander grabs the glowing bowl of spell ingredients and smashes it against the wall. The wind dies, and Willow collapses to the floor. Xander goes to check on Anya. She’s on the floor against the wall in the corner of the dining room. She seems to be okay.
Buffy rushes to Willow, who is writhing on the floor, her hair and eyes back to normal. “It’s still in me! I feel it!”
Buffy kneels down and hugs her friend. “No, it’s not. It’s gone. You’re okay.”
“I don’t want to hurt anybody!” says Willow. “Please, Buffy, don’t let it make me! Oh, god!”
“We won’t,” says Buffy. “I promise, okay? I promise. We won’t use magic to fight this thing until we know what we’re doing.”
“I can’t!” says Willow. “I can’t! I’m—I’m sorry!”
Buffy continues to hold her friend.
Buffy heads toward the front door with an axe in hand.
“At least let me come with you,” says Xander.
“I’m going alone,” says Buffy.
“You said yourself you don’t know how to fight the First,” says Xander, “or even where it is.”
“It’s out there. It’s hurting my friends. I’ll find it.”
Buffy opens the door and freezes, shocked by who she sees on her front doorstep.
“Buffy,” says Giles.
“Giles!” Buffy starts to step toward Giles to hug him, but a girl with dark hair suddenly steps between them. She’s about fifteen years old. “Nice place,” she says with a Cockney accent. “Bit of a mess.” She’s followed by two more girls, about sixteen, and nineteen.
The older girl stops and looks at Buffy. “This is the Slayer?” she asks. She doesn’t seem impressed. “Huh.”
“Sorry to barge in,” says Giles. “I’m afraid we have a slight…apocalypse.”
Dawn looks at the three girls standing in a row by the desk in the living room. Molly, Annabelle, and Kennedy. Molly is the youngest of the three, the one with the Cockney accent, and Kennedy the oldest.
“They’re all Slayers?” asks Dawn. She turns away and goes back to join Willow and Anya on the sofa.
“Potential Slayers,” says Giles. He’s standing by the fireplace with his hands in his pockets. “Waiting for one to be called. There were many more like them all over the world, but, um, now there’s just a handful, and they’re all on their way to Sunnydale.”
“The others were murdered,” says Buffy. She remembers her dreams about the girls being killed in Istanbul, and Germany.
“In cold blood,” says Giles. “As well as their Watchers. We always feared that this day would come when there’d be an attack against not just an individual Slayer, but against the whole line.” He remember’s Robson’s dieing words to him. “It’s started.”
“The First,” says Buffy. “That’s what it wants.”
“Yes,” says Giles. “To erase all the Slayers-in-training and their Watchers, along with their methods.”
“And then…Faith…and then me,” says Buffy. “With all the potentials gone and no way of making another, it’s the end. No more Slayer. Ever.”
“But we haven’t found any information on the First,” says Willow. “No documentation—”
“That’s because it predates any written history,” says Giles. “And it rarely shows its true face. The only record I know was in the Council library.”
“What about the Council?” asks Anya. “What do they say about this?”
“Gone,” says Giles. “Obliterated. They were in session, and, uh, there was an explosion.”
“That means all the Council’s records are—are destroyed?” asks Willow.
“Annabelle,” says Giles.
The third girl steps forward and unzips the small backpack she’s carrying. She pulls out two books and half a dozen file folders filled with papers. She puts them on the coffee table. Willow, Anya, Dawn and Buffy all reach for books or folders, and start looking through them.
“That’s what’s left,” says Giles. “The mystic secrets of the Watchers and whatever I could find on the First. When I learned what was happening, I—I—I stole them.”
“And you blew the Council up!” says Anya. “See, this is what happens when you’re all stuffy and repressed. You overreact.”
“Not— I didn’t!” says Giles. “It must have been an agent of the First, after my little…burglary session. The knowledge contained in these files had to be protected, and there wasn’t time for—for bureaucracy or debate. The Council knows no other way.”
“And it cost them their lives!” blurts out Andrew. Everyone looks at him, still tied up in the corner. He suddenly regrets becoming the center of attention. “Go on.”
“Can we gag him?” Buffy asks Xander. He gets up to do that while she turns her attention back to Giles. “But what do these records say about the First?”
“Uh, very little,” says Giles. “It can change form. It only appears in the guise of someone who has passed away.”
Willow and Dawn exchange a look. “Our ghosts,” says Willow.
“Also, it’s not corporeal,” says Giles. “It can’t touch or fight on its own. It only works through those it manipulates and its followers, the Bringers.”1
“Those freaks in the black robes,” says Kennedy.
“Yeah, with the hoodies and the crazy alphabet eyes,” says Molly. She looks around nervously. “I never saw ’em. I just heard—”
“Shh, Molly!” says Annabelle. “Mr. Giles doesn’t need us prattling on.” She speaks with a British accent too.
“The First is unlike anything we’ve faced before,” says Giles. “There’s evil, and then there’s…the thing that created evil. The source.”
“And that’s what this thing claims to be?” asks Buffy.
“That’s what it is!” says Giles. “It has eternities to act, and endless resources. How to defeat it, I— Honestly I don’t know. We have to find away. For if the Slayer line is eliminated, then the Hellmouth has no guardian. The balance is destroyed. I’m afraid it falls to you, Buffy. Sorry. We’ll do what we can, but…you’re the only one who has the strength to protect these girls…and the world against what’s coming.”
“But no pressure,” says Xander.
“That’s it?” asks Kennedy. “That’s the plan? I don’t see how one person, even a Slayer, could protect us. I saw what those Bringer guys can do. They tore apart my Watcher.”
“Of course we’ll use all our resources,” says Giles.
“And if this thing is the root of all evil, isn’t the Hellmouth its number one vacation spot?” asks Kennedy. “I mean, don’t you think we should be hiding our asses on the other side of the globe?”
“Kennedy!” says Annabelle.
Buffy cuts Annabelle off. “No, she’s not wrong. We need more muscle. That’s why we need to find Spike.”
“Yeah, he’ll help,” says Anya. “You know, if he’s not crazy or off killing people or dead… or, you know, all of the above.”
The primeval vampire holds Spike’s head under in the pool of water while Drusilla watches. It pulls Spike out and throws him on the ground. Spike coughs up water.
“That’s why our kind make such good dollies,” says Drusilla. “Hard to kill. Tried to enlighten little Buffy, didn’t you? Spill, spill, spilled our secrets like seed.” Drusilla starts to lift the skirt of her dress. “But you forgot… I say what you tell and what you know. I say when this is over.” She releases her skirt, and lets it fall back. “And I’m not done with you yet. Not nearly.”
She clicks her tongue at the primeval vampire. It grabs Spike by the throat, picks him up, and shoves his head into the water again.2
Buffy and Giles walk along Sunnydale’s main street together. The store windows all have their Christmas displays in them.
“This place you originally saw the First, you say it was a Christmas tree lot?” asks Giles.
“Under it,” says Buffy. “There was a hidden cavern. Just happened to be under a tree lot. The Bringers were doing some kind of ritual. Giles, this is bad, isn’t it? A new kind of bad.”
Giles looks around at the decorations. “Just in time for Christmas.”
“You know, I didn’t even realize it was December,” says Buffy. “Maybe when we get home we should decorate the rubble.” Giles grins. “Think you’ll ever show up for a real visit? The kind where the world isn’t about to end?”
“If we survive this,” says Giles, “I promise.”
“Good,” says Buffy. “’Cause I miss you.”
“I miss you, too.”
“So how long have you followed Buffy?” asks Andrew. He’s still tied in the chair.
“I don’t follow her,” says Xander. “She’s my best friend.”
“Huh. She seems like a good leader,” says Andrew. “Her hair is shiny. Does she make you stab things?”
Willow finishes preparing the sofa for someone to sleep on it. The windows behind it have been boarded over. “Okay, so Annabelle can sleep down here,” she tells Kennedy. “Uh, Molly can sleep in Dawn’s room.” She picks up a pile of sheets and blankets.
“Not if Dawn actually wants to sleep,” says Kennedy. “Molly’ll talk her ear off.”
“Okay, then Molly down here.” Willow starts toward the stairs. “You with Dawn, and Annabelle in my room.”
“Bad idea,” says Kennedy. “Annabelle snores.”
Willow hands Kennedy the stack of bedding. “You want to do the sleeping arrangements?”
“Okay.” Kennedy starts up the stairs. She turns back to Willow and grins. “You ah, better not hog the covers.”
Willow is shocked speechless by Kennedy’s obvious flirting.
Dawn has just come out of the kitchen, wearing an apron. “Does she want to eat?”
“What? Huh?” asks Willow. She shakes her head. “Oh, she’s— Oh, she’s new.”
Dawn heads back toward the kitchen with Willow. “Well, Annabelle and Molly are starved, and I totally burned the mac and cheese. Oh! I’ll put hot sauce on it, tell them it’s an American thing, and say it’s ‘blackened.’”
Anya is scraping the burned macaroni and cheese into the garbage. “Actually It’s not blackened so much as ruined.”
“Or we can order pizza!” says Willow.
Annabelle looks up from the book she’s studying at the kitchen counter. “As long as it’s plain. I’m veggie.”
Molly is searching cupboards for something to eat. “Cracked, you mean.”
Annabelle looks at her. “Just because you’ll eat any kind of trash…”
Molly finds some boxes of cookies. “Brill! Biscuits! You don’t mind, do you?” she asks Dawn. “I got a case of the nerves after Mr. Giles’ lecture.”
Dawn grabs a box for herself. “Knock yourself out.” She opens it and offers some to Annabelle, while Molly and Willow dig into the second box. “I feel a cookie problem coming on myself.”
Buffy and Giles walk out into the empty lot. “So the entrance to the cave…” Giles looks around. “…was above ground…here?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was around here somewhere,” says Buffy.
Giles keeps looking around. “Well, we’ll just keep—” He’s interrupted by the sound of splintering wood, and a shriek from Buffy. He spins around, but she’s vanished. There are some broken boards that had been covering a hole in the ground where she’d been standing.
“Found it!” calls Buffy.
Giles puts on his glasses, and looks down into the hole. He can see Buffy about twenty feet below him. “Good lord, are you all right?”
Buffy picks herself up, and brushes off her jeans. “Peachy, except my knees bend backwards now.” She looks around a bit. “Okay. Giles, stay up there. I’m going to check it out.”
“All right,” says Giles.
Buffy starts to look around the cave. She doesn’t see anything at first, but she hears something moving behind her. She spins around and sees nothing. Buffy turns back, and the primeval vampire is right in front of her. It hits Buffy with a punch to the head that knocks her flying against the cave wall.
The vampire moves in and attacks Buffy again while she’s getting back to her feet. She manages to block its first couple of kicks and punches, but it connects again, and Buffy is knocked staggering.
The vampire tries to pounce on Buffy, but she dodges it. Buffy attacks the vampire, but it evades her and hits her again, hard. This thing is fast as well as strong. Buffy pulls a stake from her coat pocket, and comes at the vampire again. This time she gets past its defenses, and sinks her stake into its chest.
The vampire staggers back, but then it smiles, showing off a mouth full of fangs. It reaches up and grabs the end of her stake which is still sticking out of its chest, and pulls it out. The wound in its chest heals almost instantly.
Buffy is getting scared.
The primeval vampire attacks Buffy, using her own stake as a weapon. She evades it, and the stake shatters against the cave wall. She punches at the vampire, but it catches her fist in its hand, and squeezes. Buffy cries out in pain.
The vampire twists Buffy’s arm, and swings her around, smashing her face first into a stalagmite. Buffy falls to the cave floor.
The vampire grabs Buffy by the throat and picks her up. She looks around desperately and sees a stalactite hanging from the cave ceiling. She grabs it, breaks it off, and smashes the vampire over the head with it. The vampire drops Buffy and falls to the ground. She scrambles away, and starts to climb the cave wall toward the opening above her. Just as she reaches it the vampire grabs at her ankle and pulls her back.
Buffy kicks the vampire away, and climbs for the opening again. This time she reaches it, and climbs out. She sees Giles running across the lot toward her, silhouetted by the rising sun.
The vampire comes out of the hole behind Buffy, but it flinches away from the sunlight. It retreats back underground.
Buffy opens the back door of her house. Giles is right behind her. “…the others just yet. It’ll give us a chance to…” She stops when she sees Kennedy, Annabelle and Molly eating breakfast cereal around the kitchen island.
“Sorry about the British invasion,” says Kennedy.
“We’ve been up for hours,” says Molly.
“Four PM, London time,” explains Annabelle.
Kennedy notices the cut on Buffy’s forehead, and the state of her clothes. “Are you all right? You look…”
Buffy waves off her concerns. “Oh. Yeah, I’m okay. I just…got into a fight is all.” She closes the door and looks at Giles. “You want to tell me with what?” She takes off her coat and sits on a stool by the island.
Giles looks around at the junior Slayers. “Yes, Buffy, but don’t you think we should, uh, discuss this privately?”
“You mean, not in front of the next generation?” asks Buffy. “No time to coddle them, Giles.” She looks at the girls in her kitchen. “Welcome to the war room, guys.” Annabelle gets a pad and pencil to keep notes.
“Uh, what you fought was a vampire, but it was, um, something more than that,” says Giles. “It was a Turok-Han. As neanderthals are to human beings, the Turok-Han are to vampires. They’re a primordial, ferociously powerful killing machine, as single-minded as animals. They are the vampires that vampires fear. An ancient and entirely different race, and until this morning, I thought they were a myth.”
“So the First shows up, and now this,” says Buffy. “Think it’s a coincidence?”
“I think it’s more likely that the Turok-Han is here as an agent of the First,” says Giles.
Annabelle looks up from her notepad. “Um…did you slay it?”
“No,” says Buffy. “It’s still out there…somewhere.”
“What does it want?” asks Molly.
“All of us dead,” says Buffy. That gives the girls pause. “But for now, it looks like sunlight’s keeping this uber-vamp away.”
“So until sunset, I suggest you get some rest,” says Giles. “A few hours sleep will do a world of difference.”
“No sleep today,” says Buffy. “Can’t.”
“Oh, come on, you’re exhausted.”
“Oh, it comes with the gig.” Buffy gets up off the stool. “Somehow I don’t think taking on prehistoric evil comes with naptime.” She looks at the junior Slayers. “Sorry, potential guys. I know you came a long way and you want to get into it but, the best thing you can do right now is just sit tight. Wait it out. I’m going to go to work, see what I can find out. I’ll be back before sunset.”
“How do you plan to research something as ill-defined as the First?” asks Giles.
“I have the best plan ever,” says Buffy.
Buffy sits at her desk with a jumbo cup of coffee, and her hair combed down over the cut on her forehead. She talks to Willow on the phone while she tries doing some searches on the internet. She has already had another look around in the basement, and found nothing. She types “EVIL” into an internet search engine. “Maybe the First just isn’t ready for modern technology. ‘Displaying results 1-10 of… 900,517.’ Okay, I got to narrow this down. I’ll call you back? … Yeah.”
Buffy starts to type something else into the search field. Principal Wood leans against her cubical partition and reads over her shoulder: “‘Manifestations of evil?’” Buffy looks up at him, and keeps typing. “‘In…the…movies.’ You’re searching for evil movies?”
Buffy looks embarrassed. “I know it’s not the all-time most kosher use of my office hours. Um, but, you know, looking at some downtime, and what can I say? Just love those evil-evil movies. Like Exorcist, you know, Blair Witch…”
“Hmm,” says Wood. “As opposed to, say, Rob Schneider’s oeuvre.”
“Different kind of evil,” says Buffy.
“Yeah.” Wood moves into the chair in front of Buffy’s desk. “Buffy, I’m not that big a fan of scary movies, even the hokey ones. Sometimes they go to a place that I think kids could stand to avoid.” He leans against Buffy’s desk, and looks at her.
Buffy meets his gaze. “Well, it’s not for the kids.”
“Yeah…yeah,” says Wood. “I’m only saying that once you see true evil, it can have some serious afterburn, and then you can’t unsee what you saw. Ever.” Wood pauses. “It’s just one opinion. I better get back to work.” He gets up and starts to leave Buffy’s cubical.
“What kind of movies do you like?” asks Buffy.
Wood stops, but doesn’t turn around. “Oh, me? Mysteries. I love finding out what’s underneath it all at the very end.” He smiles, and heads back toward his office.
“Think of it as a game,” says Drusilla. “A fun funny game. Without all the rules or any of the bothersome winning part, but still, there are sides. You have to choose a side, Spike. Then we can fly.” Drusilla holds up her hand and looks at it. “Be free and visit all our friends as they come squirming up from out the earth.” She starts to gyrate. “I know you like a good wriggle, and a giggle, and a squiggle.”
“You’re not Drusilla,” says Spike.
Drusilla giggles. “No, I’m really not.”
“She was crazier than you.”
Drusilla whimpers, and holds her hands over her ears. “Daddy, no kicking. It’s almost Christmas day today, and you’ve gone spoiling it. I’ve been so very good all year.” She leans close to Spike and growls. “But I could be bad if you like.”
Spike looks away, toward the Turok-Han. It punches him.
Drusilla stands up again. “Bad daddy. Needs a caning. Never learned his headmaster’s lesson while all the school bells ring and ring and ring and…ring…ring.” Drusilla starts to dance around, while the Turok-Han hits Spike again.
Drusilla leans over Spike. “Choose a side. Choose our side. You know that it’s delicious. What do you say?”
“Dru, love…” says Spike.
Drusilla leans close to hear him. “Hmm?”
“Get bent!”
Drusilla pulls away from Spike. “Stupid, stubborn daddy.” The Turok-Han starts to punch Spike over and over as Dru dances. “Ring…ring…ring…”
Buffy splashes water on her face in the school washroom. She starts to wipe it off her face with her jacket sleave, but she winces in pain. She unzips, and rolls back her sleave. Her arm, and elbow are covered with scrapes and bruises.
Joyce takes Buffy’s arm in her hand. “Buffy, what happened?”
Buffy looks around. She’s in the bathroom at home with her mother. “Uh… Oh, it’s okay, Mom.”
“I tried to warn you, but…” Joyce stops herself. “Right. The last thing you need now is, uh, one of helpful Mom’s guilt trips. I’ll get you some ice.”
“No!” says Buffy. “Mom, I—I—I can’t.”
“Buffy, you have to heal.”
“I don’t have time.”
“Are you worried about the sun going down?” asks Joyce. “Because there’s some things you can’t control. The—the sun always goes down, the sun always comes up.”
“Everyone’s counting on me,” says Buffy.
“They do that, and I’m sorry, Buffy, but these—these friends of yours, they put too much pressure on you. They always have.”
“Something evil is coming.”
“Buffy, evil isn’t coming. It’s already here,” says Joyce. “Evil is always here. Don’t you know? It’s everywhere.”
“And I have to stop it,” says Buffy.
“How are you going to do that?”
“I—I don’t know yet, but—”
“Buffy, no matter what your friends expect of you, evil is a part of us,” says Joyce. “All of us. It’s natural… and no one can stop that. No one can stop nature, not even—”
Buffy is awakened by the class bell. She’s sitting at her desk. There’s a student sitting across from her. “Oh, I’m—I’m sorry. What were we talking about?”
“Only my life,” says the student. “You’re just like all the others.” He gets up, and starts to walk away.
“No, no, no, no. I’m different,” says Buffy. “I-I’m hip. I relate to the young people. No, don’t go. Uh…Uh…”
“Roger,” he says.
“Roger!” says Buffy. “See? I knew that.” He walks away. “Ohh.” Buffy drops her head down into her hands.
Principal Wood is watching Buffy through the blinds over his office window.
Everyone is gathered in the Summers’ living room. Giles checks his watch. “This day is almost over, and the sun will go down in seventeen minutes.”
The three potential Slayers are sitting on the sofa, and looking scared. Xander moves behind them with a piece of wood to reinforce the boarded over windows. “Hey, junior Slayers, don’t look so worried. I mean, sure, we don’t know where Spike is or how to fight the First or if and when the super-style vampire is going to attack us all. However, house…” He bangs his hammer against the boards over the window opening. “…boarded up. Now all we got to do is trap this uber-vamp in the pantry, and it’s game over.”
“Xander,” says Willow. “Newbies, let’s ease them into the whole jokes-in-the-face-of-death thing.”
“Who’s joking?” asks Xander. “That pantry thing could work.” Buffy and Willow just look at him. “You saying M. Night Shyamalan lied to us?”
“You’ll be okay.” Buffy tells the girls on the sofa.
“Okay or even better.” Willow smiles weakly. “It’s like our guarantee.” The girls are not encouraged.
Willow turns to Buffy. She’s not happy. “Um, Buffy, I just… I want you to know that I’m really sorry for letting you down. You know, here, before, with the magick going all ‘aah’ and me going all ‘eeee’ and everything getting all ‘rrrr.’ I wish I could help out.”
“No one expects you to make everything right,” says Buffy.
“So I can’t do everything, but I should at least be able to do something,” says Willow. “I have so much power, but when I try to use it—”
“Don’t,” says Buffy. “Okay?”
“Okay,” says Willow. Buffy starts to turn away. “But…” Buffy turns back. “…you need help, Buffy. I know you, and I know you’ll never admit it, but you need help.”
“I’ll be okay.” Buffy smiles weakly. “Okay or better. It’s like my guarantee.”
Kennedy gets up off the sofa. “Hey, are we getting weapons? Trained fighters, badness coming. I’ve heard worse ideas.”
“We’ll be armed when the Slayer feels we’re ready,” says Annabelle.
“I feel ready,” says Molly
“You’re frightened,” says Annabelle. “You must learn to control your fear.”
Kennedy turns toward Annabelle. “Hey, you know what would help with that?” She turns back to Buffy. “Weapons!”
Buffy looks around, unsure about what she should do. “Uh, I don’t know about that.”
“We’re sitting ducks without them,” says Kennedy.
“We’re with the Slayer!” says Annabelle. “Safe as houses.”
Kennedy looks around the living room. The boarded over windows aren’t the only sign of the last attack of the Harbingers. “You see the house we’re in?”
Annabelle suddenly looks scared. “It’ll come straight for us, won’t it?”
“We should load them up, Giles,” says Buffy.
“Girls, load yourselves up,” says Giles. Kennedy, Molly and Annabelle start going through Buffy’s weapons trunk to find something for themselves.
Andrew is still tied in the chair. “Listen to me, man, I got a bad feeling about this.”
“Of course you got a bad feeling, dude,” says Xander. “You’re tied to a chair.”
“No,” says Andrew. He reconsiders. “Yeah, but above and beyond that, I’m telling you, my spider-sense is tingling. This is going to get hairy. I’m talking weird with a beard. Better untie me.”
“And that’ll help us how?” asks Buffy.
“Okay, I know what you’re thinking,” says Andrew. “‘Andrew, bad guy.’ You think I’m a supervillain like Dr. Doom or Apokalypse or—or the Riddler.” Xander exchanges a look with Buffy, and shrugs. This guy is such a geek. “I admit I went over to the dark side, but just to pick up a few things, a-a-and now I’m back. I’ve learned. I’m good again.”
“And when were you good before?” asks Buffy. She walks away from him.
“Okay, technically, never,” says Andrew. “Touché, but I’m like Vader in the last five minutes of Jedi with redemptive powers of—” Xander follows Buffy, leaving Andrew pulling at the ropes binding him in the chair. “Mine is a redemptive struggle…of…epic redemption…which chronicles… These ropes itch.”
Buffy stands looking out the back hall window. Giles comes over to her. “How are we doing on time?” she asks.
“Sunset should be in a minute now,” says Giles. “Done everything we can. And don’t worry. Everyone here understands that you’re calling the shots.”
“I just hope I’m calling the right ones.”
“You have all my faith,” says Giles, “and they’re depending on you.”
“Giles, that’s not exactly what I needed to hear right now.”
Molly runs in from the living room. “Guys? Annabelle split.”
Annabelle runs down the street. She clutches at the cross necklace with her hand. She turns into an alley, looking back over her shoulder to see if she’s being followed.
The Turok-Han grabs Annabelle by the throat, and lifts her off the ground. It crushes her throat in its hand. Her necklace falls to the ground.
Buffy finds Annabelle’s body in the alley. Something hits her from behind, and she falls to the ground. She looks around and sees the Turok-Han.
Buffy lunges back to her feet, and kicks at the vampire. It dodges her attack. Buffy spins and punches at it, but it blocks her. The Turok-Han punches Buffy in the gut, and she falls to the ground.
The Turok-Han grabs Buffy by the throat, and picks her up. Buffy struggles to break free, but she can’t. She spits blood into the demon’s face.
The Turok-Han drops Buffy. She gets to her feet, and starts to run. She can’t move very fast, and she’s limping badly. The Turok-Han wipes Buffy’s blood from its face with its hand, and licks its fingers clean. It likes the taste.
Buffy limps into a factory. She looks around for an escape, or a weapon, but she sees nothing she can use. She keeps going.
The Turok-Han follows Buffy into the factory. It sees her disappearing behind some machinery, and follows her.
When the Turok-Han gets to where Buffy vanished, it can see no sign of her. It keeps looking. It goes around a corner, and gets smashed in the face by a steel bar. It staggers back a bit.
Buffy swings the bar again, but this time the Turok-Han blocks her, and it knocks the bar out of her hand. It pounds Buffy in the gut again, and her ribs can be heard breaking. It punches Buffy again, and she falls to the floor.
Buffy looks up at the Turok-Han, as it moves toward her. She sees that it’s directly under a pallet loaded with a couple of tonnes of steel pipe suspended by a cable attached to a winch by her foot. She kicks at the winch handle, breaking the lock, and the palette falls on top of the Turok-Han.
Buffy climbs painfully back to her feet, and starts to limp away. She stops when she hears metal pipes moving behind her, and she looks back. The Turok-Han is digging free from the pipes. It seems to be totally uninjured. Buffy starts to run.
The Turok-Han catches up with Buffy outside the factory. Buffy is too badly beaten already to be able to defend herself as it attacks her again. It grabs Buffy and throws her through a brick wall. Rubble falls down on top of her, and she blacks out.
Xander calls out for Buffy. He finds her buried in the rubble, her face half covered by drying blood. Giles and Willow are behind him. They are all shocked by Buffy’s condition. “Oh god almighty!” says Xander.
“Do you know why you’re alive?” asks Drusilla.
“Never figured you for…” Spike coughs. “…existential thought, love. I mean, you hated Paris.”
“You’re alive for one reason, and one reason only,” says Drusilla. “Because I wish it. Do you know why I wish it? Because I’m not done with you.”
“Give it up,” says Spike. “Whatever you are, whatever you get away with, I’m out. You can’t pull this puppet’s strings anymore.”
“And what makes you think you have a choice?” asks Drusilla. “What makes you think you will ever be any good at all in this world?”
“She does,” says Spike. “Because she believes in me.”
Buffy sits huddled in a chair in her bedroom. Her face is a mass of cuts and bruises. She can hear people talking quietly downstairs.
“We could make plans, as we always do, but the truth is Buffy was our plan,” says Giles. “There is no backup.”
“Giles, she looks bad,” says Willow.
“She does,” says Giles. “I’m afraid there may be internal bleeding.”
“What does that mean?” asks Willow. “Will she…”
“Die?” asks Giles. “No, I don’t think so, I—I don’t know.”
“But what do we do if she can’t fight?” asks Willow. “If she can’t beat this thing?”
Everyone is gathered around the table in the dining room. “We’re back at square one,” says Giles.
“Which square would that be, exactly?” asks Xander.
“I’m not sure,” says Giles. “The First predates everything we’ve ever known, or can know. It’s everywhere. It’s pure. I don’t know if we can fight it.”
“You’re right,” says Buffy. Everyone looks around and sees her stepping down from the last stair, and turning into the dining room. Kennedy is shocked by how bad she looks. “We don’t know how to fight it. We don’t know when it’ll come. We can’t run, can’t hide, can’t pretend it’s not the end, ’cause it is.
“Something’s always been there to try and destroy the world. We’ve beaten them back, but we’re not dealing with them anymore. We’re dealing with the reason they exist. Evil. The strongest. The First.”
“Buffy, I know… I—I know you’re— you’re tired,” says Giles.
“I’m beyond tired,” says Buffy. “I’m beyond scared. I’m standing on the mouth of Hell, and it is going to swallow me whole.” Her voice hardens with resolve. “And it’ll choke on me!
“We’re not ready? They’re not ready! They think we’re going to wait for the end to come, like we always do. I’m done waiting. They want an apocalypse? Oh, we’ll give ’em one.” Buffy looks at Molly and Kennedy. “Anyone else who wants to run…do it now, ’cause we just became an army. We just declared war.” She looks at Willow. “From now on, we won’t just face our worst fears. We will seek them out. We will find them and cut out their hearts one by one until the First shows itself for what it really is. And I’ll kill it myself. There is only one thing on this earth more powerful than evil, and that’s us.”
Buffy looks around at the people gathered in her dining room. “Any questions?”
| Who or What | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| Annabelle | An alleyway | Killed by the Turok-Han |