Introduction
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| Bring on the Night | Potential |
The late night bus arrives at the Sunnydale terminal, and three people get off it. Two guys, followed by a young girl. She’s black, about sixteen years old with her hair in dreadlocks. She’s wearing denim overalls, and has a small backpack slung over her shoulder. The bus pulls away as soon as she’s off it.
The girl approaches the terminal building but it’s closed. She looks around and doesn’t see anyone. The two guys who got off ahead of her have already left. She sees a pay phone and goes over to it. She starts looking through the phone book, flipping quickly to the ‘S’ pages. The page she needs has been ripped out.
A shadow falls across her and she looks up. She sees one of the First’s Harbingers. She looks the other way, between a pair of parked buses, and sees two more. They all have curved knives in their hands. The girl is terrified. She slowly backs away, up against the wall. She sags down to the ground as the first Harbinger approaches her.
Suddenly the two Harbingers between the parked bus are knocked flying. Buffy is standing right behind where they’d been. The Harbinger threatening the girl turns away from her and attacks Buffy. She quickly disarms it and stabs it with its own knife.
A second Harbinger attacks Buffy and she kills it quickly too. The third turns away and starts to run.
“Hey!” Buffy picks up one of the Harbinger’s knives off the ground. “Try picking on someone my own size.” She throws the knife at the departing Harbinger. It sinks into its back and the Harbinger falls to the ground, dead.
Buffy walks over to the girl still on the ground. “Rona, right? I just got word you were arriving.” She holds out her hand.
“You—you’re her!” Rona takes Buffy’s hand.
Buffy pulls Rona to her feet. “Her is me.”
Rona looks around. “Yeah… You know, I thought, uh… Well, they told me I’d be safe here.”
“Right…” says Buffy. “Well, you are. I mean, you will be…safer…with me around.”
“This is good,” says Rona.
“Next time you’re attacked—”
“Whoa, whoa! Next time?” asks Rona. “You sayin’ I’m going to get attacked again?”
Buffy leads Rona away between the parked buses. “Welcome to the Hellmouth.”
Willow tosses and turns in a sleeping bag on the floor of her room, unable to sleep. Kennedy looks down at her from the bed. “You don’t have to do this. Flooring it, in the bag. ’Cause nice, big, comfy bed right here.” She pats the bed beside her. “I mean, you ought to know. Your bed.”
“Yeah, but no, I’m—I’m okay,” says Willow. “I just— I like it down here. It—it’s firm.”
“Funny, you look a little uncomfortable, or is it just me?”
“No,” says Willow, “I’m just, uh…uneasy ’cause Buffy’s out.”
“Right,” says Kennedy. “How many girls arriving this time?”
“Just one,” says Willow. “But since Giles has the coven searching for other Slayers-in-Waiting to send them our way, I bet we’ll be seeing a lot more soon enough.”
“So you’re saying I should enjoy having this bed all to myself as long as I can?” asks Kennedy.
Willow laughs nervously. “It is starting to get crowded around here.”
“Totally,” says Kennedy. “And with this many girls, well, I’m just saying, if we don’t get another bathroom in this house soon, things are going to get ugly.”
“Sounds like somebody had to share mirror time with a bunch of siblings,” says Willow.
“Somebody not me!” says Kennedy. “I only got a half-sister, and we didn’t have to share. Her bedroom was in a different wing of the house.”
“Wing?” asks Willow. “Your house had wings?”
“Yeah, just a couple…a few,” says Kennedy. “Our summer home in the Hamptons didn’t have any at all. Well, one…actually.”
“Huh,” says Willow. “Well, that’s—that’s… Huh.”
“But never mind my deal,” says Kennedy. “What’s your story, Willow? I mean…witchcraft? Wow. That sounds…new-agey.”
“No,” says Willow. “It’s safe to say that what I practice is definitely old-agey.”
“So…show me a trick.”
“A trick?” asks Willow.
“You know, pull a rabbit out of something, or make something float.”
Willow really doesn’t like the idea of magic as just tricks. “Yeah, listen, Kennedy, um, it’s almost morning, and we really need to get some sleep.”
“Hey, if I wanted to sleep, I’d be downstairs catching Zs with the other girls,” says Kennedy.
Molly sits in a chair in the living room with a bag of chips in her lap, and three new girls—Chloe, Eve, and Vi—looking up at her from their sleeping bags on the floor. She’s telling spooky stories. “Annabelle was all ‘control your fear. Control your fear.’ Meanwhile, she’s the one that goes scampering off, right into that Turok-Han vampire.” She shakes her head. “Poor Annie.”
“Great,” says Eve. She’s a blonde girl, about seventeen with a southern accent. “So the Slayer who’s supposed to protect us let her get killed?”
“She didn’t let her,” says Molly. “Annabelle was foolish. Buffy can’t be faulted for arriving too late.”
“It’s not like she could have stopped it,” says Chloe. She’s youngest of the three, about fourteen years old, looking rather like a young Willow. “I mean, Supervampire messed her up pretty good.”
“No lie,” says Vi. A red-head with short curly hair. She’s about seventeen. “She still looked like a big bruise when I got here, and that was already, like, the day after.”
“And why isn’t she back yet?” asks Eve. “Buffy. She left to get the new girl over an hour ago. Maybe she ran into trouble. You don’t think maybe she was too late again?”
“Maybe—” begins Molly.
“Maybe we can save the maybes for a more of a dayish part of the day, girls,” says Xander from the sofa where he’s been trying to sleep. He reaches up and turns on a lamp. “Potential Slayers can function without sleep. Me, I’m no good without my usual ninety minutes.”
“I’m with him,” says Andrew. He’s still tied up in the chair, with his back to the room. “Keep the chatter down… Or speak up so I can hear you.” He sighs. “I’m bored. Episode One bored.”
Buffy is just coming in the front door with Rona. “You guys are all still up?”
“Ah!” Xander sits up. “Who needs sleep?”
Buffy introduces Rona to the room, and everyone says “Hi” to her, including Andrew. Rona looks at him curiously. “Um… Why is that guy tied to a chair?”
“The question you’ll soon be asking is ‘Why isn’t he gagged?’” says Xander.
Giles and Anya come out of the kitchen. She’s carrying a rolled up sleeping bag. Giles suggests that Molly take Rona to get something to eat. “I’m sure she’s hungry after her travels.
Molly gets up from the chair. “Fair enough. A bit peckish meself.” Her bag of chips is empty.
“Bit what as well?” asks Rona.
“That’s English for ‘hungry,’” says Anya.
Rona follows Molly toward the kitchen. “Oh. Here I thought ‘hungry’ was English for ‘hungry.’”
Giles asks Buffy if everything went all right. She tells him about the welcoming committee. She starts helping Anya lay out the sleeping bag on the floor.
“So the First knows potential Slayers are making their way here,” says Xander.
“I must warn the coven to be cautious,” says Giles.
“The First is always going to be one step ahead of us, Giles,” says Buffy. “I need to know how to stop it. No, not stop it, hurt it. I want to hurt it real bad. Tell me how.”
“I—I don’t know, Buffy.” Giles sits down in the chair Molly vacated. “I’ve—I’ve… I’ve exhausted all the sources I have left with little result. The Watchers’ records are still really all we have to go on.”
“I made the rounds myself,” says Anya. “Tried to dig up anything useful from the demon community.”
“They’re a community now?” asks Xander. “What’s next? A ladies auxiliary?”
Anya pointedly ignores him. “The ones that didn’t attack me didn’t know anything or didn’t talk. Either way, we’ve got squat.”
“Well, squat’s not going to cut it,” says Buffy. “What about the Turok-Han?”
“The vampire time forgot?” asks Xander.
“Time might have forgotten him, but I sure as hell won’t.” Buffy sighs. “We know stakes don’t kill it, but… Anything in those ancient myths about what does? Sunlight? Fire? Germs?”
“So, Giles,” says Andrew sarcastically, “with that thing guarding the entrance to the First’s crib, how will Buffy get to Spike?”
“I really hate to admit this, but he’s not wrong,” says Buffy. “And there’s no way I’m going to be able to help Spike until that thing is out of the way.”
“Spike?” asks Eve. “Sorry, I’m confused. He’s that vampire who’s been killing people, right? He’s the one you’re worried about helping?”
“Well, we need him to… He’s the one that’s been…” Buffy really can’t explain this. “It—it’s complicated, Chloe.”
“I’m Chloe,” says Chloe. “She’s Eve.”
“It—it’s just… Well, we’ve been talking, and… Well, do we have some kind of plan?” asks Eve. “You know, any kind of plan to keep us from dying?”
Buffy sighs again, and stands up. “We’re working on it.”
“There is one avenue that we haven’t tried yet,” says Giles.
Anya jumps to her feet. “Giles!”
“Beljoxa’s Eye,” says Giles.
“And exactly what part of town is that avenue in?” asks Xander.
“I told you, no!” says Anya.
“What is Botox’s Eye?” asks Buffy.
“Beljoxa’s Eye,” says Giles. “It’s a—a— an oracle-type creature that exists in a dark dimension.”
“An eternal vortex, more like,” says Anya.
“Fun,” says Buffy.
“Not really, no,” says Anya.
“The point is only demons can open the gateway to it,” says Giles.
“Excuse me,” says Anya, “ex-demon here.”
“Still have friends in the fold,” says Giles. “Murderous acquaintances, anyway.”
“Look, there’s no reason to think that this Beljoxa’s Eye will have any of the answers we’re looking for,” says Anya.
“I’ll take anything I can get,” says Buffy. “Anya, please, we’re running out of time. Spike’s running out of time.”
Spike is tied to the cavern wall with leather straps holding his hands up over his head. He’s still shirtless, and the symbols carved on his chest haven’t healed.
One of the Harbingers approaches Spike. It pulls its knife, and slashes at him.
Spike swings his legs up and kicks the knife from the Harbinger’s hand. He catches the Harbinger around its head with his legs and twists. He breaks the Harbinger’s neck. It falls to the ground, dead.
Another Harbinger rushes at Spike with a torch. Spike pulls his hands free, and kicks the Harbinger to the ground. He runs out of the cavern.
Spike runs around a corner in the passage, and sees Buffy in a white dress. She smiles invitingly at him. He steps toward her…
…Spike it brought up short by the straps tying his wrists to the cavern wall. The First is in front of him, looking like Buffy in a black dress.
“Tsk,” says the First. “Dreaming of me again, aren’t you? Poor Spike. He still thinks I believe in him. Be realistic. I don’t even believe in myself. At least not enough to risk my skin to save your ass. Not enough to face…” She looks around behind her. “…that.”
The Turok-Han is pacing around the cavern, and growling.
The First turns back to Spike. “I’m sorry, Spike, but you need to accept this. You know it never would have worked out. It’s time to let go so we can both move on. I promise, soon, it’ll all be—” She notices that Spike is muttering something under his breath. She comes closer so she can hear him.
“She will come…” whispers Spike. “She…will come for me.”
The First passes her hand by Spike’s face, nearly a caress. She nearly touches his lips with her finger. “No, I won’t.”
Torg dumps a garbage can into a dumpster in an alley. He’s a demon, with large pointy ears, and wart like growths on his face. He’s wearing a white apron over his clothes.
“Why not?” asks Anya. She’s in the alley with Giles, and the demon.
Torg turns back to Anya. “You’ve got the nerve to ask me that?”
“Come on,” says Anya. “Torg, that was a lifetime ago.”
“Three, but who’s counting?” asks Torg. “You broke my heart, Anyanka.”
“Don’t be so dramatic, Torg. You don’t even have a heart. Six spleens, two stomachs, half a brain maybe, but no heart.”
“Don’t mock this,” says Torg. “The night we spent together was important to me.”
“It was one date. It wasn’t even a date. We just happened to be invited to the same massacre, and you hit on me after I had a few.”
“I remember,” says Torg. “You wore pink.”
“Those were entrails.”
Giles decides it’s time to interrupt. “I’m sorry. Perhaps we could skip the nostalgic…” He sees the looks that Torg and Anya are giving him and goes to lean against the wall. “Sorry. Carry on.”
“Okay, Torg, look, you open this tiny, little gateway to the Beljoxa’s Eye for me, and—and… I’ll… You and I can go…” Anya sighs in resignation. “I’ll have sex with you again.”
“Ugh. Please!” says Torg. “You’re human! The way you look now… Wouldn’t touch you for all the kittens in Korea.”
“You’re rejecting my offer of sexual bribery?” asks Anya. “What am I? A leper in this town? I can’t even give it away.”
“Come back when you are a leper,” says Torg. He starts to take his garbage can back inside.
Giles stops propping up the wall. He steps in front of Torg. “Um, perhaps this might change you mind. You help us, and the Slayer will not kill all your clientele and burn your establishment down to the ground.”
Torg glares at Giles. He raises a fist. He has a long shark tooth shaped spine on his knuckle. He runs his other hand over the spine, slicing open his palm.
Torg squeezes blood from his self inflicted wound, and throws it back down the alley. “Ek’vola mok’t Beljoxa do’kar!” A misty portal starts to grow. It swells rapidly. “There’s your stinkin’ gateway, Anyanka. Don’t let it hit you on the way out.” Torg grabs his garbage can, and leaves.
“It’s the hair, right?” Anya asks Giles. “Not attractive?”
Giles steps toward the portal in the alley. “Come on.” A strong wind is blowing from it.
Anya steps up beside him. “Buckle up.” They step into the portal.
The portal takes Anya and Giles into a formless void. They can see each other but everything else is black. Gale force winds swirl around them.
“God, I hate this place!” shouts Anya over the wind.
Giles looks around. “Where’s the Beljoxa’s Eye?”
“Here,” says a voice behind them. Giles and Anya spin around and see the eye…or eyes. Beljoxa’s Eye is about the size of a basket ball, and its entire surface is covered in eyes of various sizes, from the size of a marble up to a baseball. It is held in a metal cage, and a long fleshy tentacle extends away from it into the darkness.
“Oh…Oh!” Anya waves to it. “Hi!”
Willow answers the telephone in the Summers’ kitchen. “Hello? … No, Giles isn’t here right— … Yeah, this is Willow.” She recognises the person on the other end. “Althenea, hi! How’s the coven? I miss you guys. Still working out that Pleiadian spirit conjuring?” Althenea interrupts with something important. “What? … Oh. … Okay, when?”
Xander starts to untie Andrew’s left hand.
“Ow! Watch it!” complains Andrew. “That’s my joystick hand.”
Xander shakes his head, and finishes releasing Andrew’s hand. “I’m not going to touch that one.”
Buffy is standing looking down at him. “Okay, listen up, Andrew. I don’t exactly know what to do with you, except that we don’t have time to baby-sit a hostage.”
“Especially a hostage that’s gotten more than a little ripe,” says Xander.
Buffy didn’t want to be reminded of that, and she takes a step back. “So I’m here to tell you: you try anything, try to run… You ever see the movie Misery?”
“Six times, but the book was scarier than the movie ’cause instead of crushing his foot with a sledgehammer, Kathy Bates chops it off with…” Andrew stops. He has noticed the way Buffy is looking at him, and he understands her message. He swallows. “I’ll be good.”
Willow comes out of the kitchen. “Buffy! Word from the underground. Another Potential arrived in town the day before yesterday. She’s at the Sunspot Motel, near the highway.”
“The day before yesterday?” asks Xander. “Why are we just finding out about it now?”
“Bringers killed her Watcher before he could tell anyone he sent her,” says Willow. “If it wasn’t for a particularly powerful seer in the coven, we wouldn’t even know about it now.”
“Okay.” Buffy glances out one of the unboarded over windows. “There’s still a couple hours of daylight left. You guys should be safe here. I’ll get her and bring her back.” She starts toward the door.
Xander follows after her. “I’ll go with you.”
“All right, retrieving a Potential!” says Andrew. “Let’s do it…” Buffy and Xander stop, turn around and look at him. “Or I could just go wash up.”
Dawn comes into the living room as Buffy and Xander are going out the door. “Where are they going?”
“Bringing another newbie in from the cold,” says Willow.
“Another one?”
“Well, the more the better, I figure,” says Willow. “We need all the help we can get.”
“Help,” says Dawn. “Sure, th-that’s cool, but…”
“What?”
“I’m just not sure more scared Slayer wannabes translates as help,” says Dawn.
A makeshift training area has been set up in Buffy’s basement. The Potential Slayers are all down there. Kennedy steadies a large punching bag while Chloe punches and kicks at it. Vi is doing some stretching exercises, and Molly is holding a couple of stakes, trying to twirl them in her hands. Eve and Rona are just looking on.
“What are we all doing here?” asks Eve.
“It’s called training,” says Kennedy. “Didn’t your Watcher ever teach you the word?”
“I never had a Watcher,” says Rona. “I only just found out what I was or, what I might be after those crazy-ass monks came after me.”
“I meant, why are we all bothering?” asks Eve. “It’s not like we can make a difference.”
“We’ve got to train,” says Molly. “We’ve got to keep our reflexes sharp.” She drops one of her stakes.
“We have to be ready,” says Kennedy. “If something comes down—”
“No,” says Chloe. “Something’s already come down.”
“She’s right,” says Eve, “and what are we supposed to do about it? I mean, I’ve never seen a real vampire in my whole life, much less slayed one.”
“I’ve seen one,” says Vi. Everyone looks at her. “Well, my Watcher once showed me a photograph of one… A blurry photograph.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” says Eve. “Not one of us is remotely prepared to be activated as the new Chosen One.”
“I feel pretty prepared,” says Kennedy.
“Excuse the newness of me,” says Rona, “but, uh, just so I understand, if a Slayer dies…”
“Well, when the Slayer dies,” says Eve. “I mean, nobody lives forever, right?”
“One of—one of us…” says Rona.
“Gets activated,” says Eve. “Uh-huh.”
“I prefer ‘called,’” says Molly.
“I heard there’s more than one,” says Vi.
“More than one what?” asks Kennedy.
“Slayer,” says Vi. “There’s another one…somewhere.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” says Molly.
“Like any of this does,” says Eve. “No matter how many there are, one of us is going to be the next Slayer with the weight of the world on her shoulders.”
“It won’t be me,” says Chloe. “I mean, not now. I mean…I’m too young.”
“Doesn’t work that way,” says Kennedy. “In fact, the younger, the better. In fact, I’m starting to think it might be too late for me.”
“Never too late,” says Eve. “It could be anyone, especially since there’s so few of us left. They’ll just run through each one of us, one after the other.” She looks around at the other girls. “Kinda creepy, huh? All we do is wait around for each other to die.”
Buffy and Xander arrive outside room 25 at the Sunspot Motel. “We sure this is it?” he asks.
“Clerk said it’s the only check-in they’ve had in a week.” Buffy knocks on the door. “Tourism must be down.”
“And right in the middle of apocalypse season.” There has been no answer to Buffy’s knock, so Xander cups his hands over his eyes and tries to peer in through a crack in the blinds over the window.
“Hello?” calls Buffy. “It’s okay. We’re friendly, and we have eyes.”
Xander sees something through the window. “Buffy, kick the door down.”
Buffy kicks open the door. She sees the body of a blond girl lying face down on the floor in a pool of dried blood. She has stab wounds in her back. Buffy kneels beside her and feels for a pulse. “She’s cold, been dead for days.”
“Poor kid,” says Xander. “She made it all the way to Sunnydale just to get herself killed. If only we…”
Buffy rolls the body over. She recognise her. “Eve?”
“Eve, who’s in our house?” asks Xander.
The girls in the basement have stopped even pretending to train. They’re all sitting around on the floor talking.
“Just my personal opinion, but I don’t think the Slayer can protect us from the First,” says the First, in the guise of Eve.
Dawn collects a couple of her school books off the research table in the back of the living room.
“Okay, here’s another interesting thing: how come the Slayer is always a girl?” asks Andrew.
“I don’t know,” says Dawn. “’Cause girls are cooler?”
“I think a guy Slayer would be a badass,” says Andrew. “Like—like if there was this ninja, a guy Slayer would be like…” Andrew goes into a kung-fu pose. “‘You may be silent, but this’ll shut you up.’ Hyah!”
“Buffy can stomp ninja ass,” says Dawn.
“The silent warrior?” Andrew laughs. “I think not. She can’t even slay that special vampire.” Dawn glares at him. “Everyone’s saying.”
Dawn is getting annoyed. “Well, everyone should shut up, and you should stop pretending anybody here is your friend.”
“And also, why is she so about saving Spike?” asks Andrew. “He’s a worse killer than me…by a way lot.”
“Spike was being controlled by the First, and he has a soul now,” says Dawn. “Besides, we’ll need his help.”
“What about me?” asks Andrew. “Did it ever occur to anyone that I could be a lot more useful around here? I used to be an evil genius. Hello?”
“And what was your genius thing?” asks Dawn.
“Well, um, raising demons, mostly,” says Andrew. “Okay, so, not for now, but also there was planning. There were, um, blueprints. I can be in this, kickin’ it righteous, yeah. Oh, oh, yeah.”
“Buffy said if you talked enough, I’m allowed to kill you,” says Dawn.
“Not even.”
Dawn stares coldly at him. “Even.”
“License to kill, huh?” says Andrew. “Pretty cool.”
Dawn looks disgusted.
“You know, Timothy Dalton never got his props ’cause he came in at the end of an old regime,” says Andrew, “but he had it goin’ on. He went rogue with the Broccolis. They were just treading water, stylistically.”
Dawn shakes her head, and looks at Andrew in disbelief. “Is there a language that you’re speaking?”
Andrew goes and sits down on the sofa. “I’m so alone.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have killed your only friend,” says Dawn. She starts toward the dining room.
“I hate that,” says Andrew. “You don’t even know.”
Dawn stops and looks back at him. “I don’t plan to.”
“The Slayer’s not getting it done,” says Andrew. “I have got my ear to the ground, and that’s the word.”
Dawn really doesn’t have anything to say in response to that. She turns away, and heads for the dining room.
“Do you want to play Kevin Bacon?” asks Andrew.
Dawn doesn’t stop this time. A dejected Andrew lies down on the sofa.
Buffy bursts through the front door. She looks into the dining room, and sees Dawn doing her homework, with Willow helping her. She goes into the living room, and sees Andrew lying with his shoes on the sofa. He quickly sits up, and brushes off the place where his feet had been.
Willow and Dawn know that something’s wrong. They follow Buffy as she heads for the kitchen. Andrew follows them too.
Buffy comes down the stairs into the basement. She sees the girls sitting around on the floor talking. “Get away from them!”
Kennedy looks up at Buffy. “Who? Get away from who?”
Eve looks around at Buffy. “What’s the problem, officer?”
“I said get away from them, now!” says Buffy.
“Buffy, what did Eve do?” asks Dawn.
Xander has come down after them. “That’s not Eve.”
“Eve’s dead,” says Buffy.
“Uh, I don’t understand,” says Rona.
The First stands up, and turns to face Buffy. “Oops. One more down. Oh, well, can’t save ’em all, can you, Buffy?” She turns back toward the other girls who have all stood up too. “Thanks for the slumber party, girls. It’s been real fun these past couple of nights. I learned a whole lot—”
“Shut up and get out!” says Buffy.
“Or you’ll do what?” asks the First. Buffy can’t answer that question. She knows that she can’t touch the First. All of the other girls see that Buffy can’t do anything either.
“I’ll be sending a guest over to visit y’all later on tonight,” says the First. “After the sun goes down, of course. Try and make him feel welcome…before he rips y’all to pieces. Bye.” The First disappears in a flash of light.
Andrew turns and starts back up the stairs. “I need to go wash up again.”
Giles and Anya stand in the wind whirling around Beljoxa’s Eye.
“It cannot be fought,” says the Eye. “It cannot be killed. The First Evil has been, and always will be. Since before the universe was born, long after there is nothing else. It will go on.”
“I refuse to believe that!” Giles shouts over the wind. “There must be some way to destroy it!”
“What? Am I talking to myself here?” asks the Eye. “There’s no way!”
Anya turns to leave. “Okay, we tried! Let’s go, Giles!”
Giles holds out a restraining hand toward her. Anya reluctantly turns back. “You’re saying that the First will succeed in—in wiping out the line of Slayers?” he asks.
“The Eye sees not the future, only the truths of the now and before.”
Anya is not impressed. “Yes, we’ve all got that! It’s called memory! Can you help us out with something a little bit more demony?”
“If the First has been around for all time, then why hasn’t it attempted something like this before?” asks Giles. “Why now?”
“The opportunity has only recently presented itself,” says the Eye.
“Opportunity?” asks Giles.
“The mystical forces surrounding the Chosen line have become irrevocably altered,” says the Eye. “Become unstable, vulnerable.”
“Something the First did?” asks Anya.
“The First Evil did not cause the disruption, only seized upon it to extinguish the lives of the Chosen forever.”
“Then what has caused the disruption?” asks Giles. “What is responsible for letting this happen?”
“The Slayer,” says the Eye.
“We should run,” says Vi.
“And go where, Vi?” asks Kennedy.
“Annabelle ran,” says Dawn. “Look where it got her.”
They are all sitting around the table in the dining room. Rona, Molly and Chloe on one side, Kennedy, Dawn and Vi on the other. Buffy is standing behind the chair at the head of the table, and Willow is seated at the other end. Xander leans against the wall behind Willow.
“Safer in than out,” says Buffy.
“How can you say that?” asks Molly. “It was here, Buffy, in the house, living with us for days.”
“And you didn’t even know it,” says Chloe.
“Well, none of us knew it,” says Xander.
“It could still be here,” says Vi. “It could be any one of us.”
“No,” says Willow. “The First can only take the form of dead people.”
“Yeah, well, there’ll be plenty more of those soon enough,” says Rona. “We’re dropping like flies here.”
All the girls start trying to talk at once. Buffy lets them chatter for a moment before she tries to call them to order. “Hey! I know you’re all scared. You know what? I am, too, but Giles and Anya will be back soon, and hopefully, they will have the information that we need to stop the First. In the meantime, we need to stick together. Okay, we’re stronger that way. We cannot afford to fall apart now.”
Andrew has just entered the dining room. “She’s right. Where would the Justice League have been if they hadn’t put their differences aside to stop the Imperium and its shape-shifting alien horde?”
Buffy looks at Andrew. “Don’t help me.”
“Buff, the sun goes down and ubervamp’s on its way,” says Xander. “So a plan’d be good right about now.”
Buffy looks at the other end of the table. “Willow, I’m sorry to ask, but…”
“I know,” says Willow. “We need a barrier.”
“A major one,” says Buffy. “Something tells me this vampire doesn’t need an invite to get into the house. Can you do it?”
“I’ll try,” says Willow.
“Try?” asks Rona.
“You heard her,” says Kennedy.
“Buffy, you sure about Willow doing the hocus-pocus again?” asks Xander. “I mean, last time, she—”
“Xander, we don’t have a lot of choices.”
“And what if that doesn’t work?” asks Chloe. “What if that monster gets through?”
“Then we’ll deal,” says Buffy.
“Deal?” asks Rona. “Fight, you mean. How are we supposed to do that?”
“And with what?” asks Vi.
“With whatever it takes,” says Kennedy. She looks up at Buffy. “Right?”
“Buffy, you fought the Turok-Han, and it almost killed you,” says Molly.
“And you’re the real Slayer,” says Chloe.
“What chance do we have?” asks Rona.
“Honestly, you staked that thing, and it didn’t die,” says Molly.
“No, but that doesn’t—”
Dawn is interrupted by Vi. “Maybe it can’t be killed.”
“That mean we shouldn’t try?” asks Dawn.
“There’s that word again,” says Rona.
Buffy has been standing silently listening to the girls talk. She looks down the table toward Willow.
Willow looks up suddenly and sees Buffy looking at her. Buffy picks up an empty bowl off the table and starts toward the kitchen.
“Hey, it’s a good word,” says Kennedy.
Willow gets up, and turns toward Xander. “What?” he asks.
“I said trying is good,” says Kennedy.
Xander seems a little disoriented. “I just thought it bared repeating.” He follows Willow and Buffy into the kitchen.
Buffy, Xander and Willow just stand silently in the kitchen looking at each other. They can still hear the girls arguing in the dining room.
“Give up,” says Chloe. “Can we do that? Surrender, I mean, so it won’t kill us.”
“Um, and exactly how many ubervamps were at the Geneva Convention?” asks Dawn.
The girls continue to argue, while Buffy, Xander and Willow stand looking at each other.
The sun has set. The First, still looking like Eve, gives her final instructions to the Turok-Han. “The time has come for all good children to say ‘good night.’ Take ’em all…except for her.”
The Turok-Han growls, and leaves the cavern. “Well…alone again.” The First turns back toward where Spike is tied to the wall, and she transforms into Buffy. “I just love having you all to myself.”
Dawn looks out through the slot in the boards covering the living room windows. “There’s more of them now.” She can see four of the First’s Bringers standing in the front yard.
Xander comes back from the kitchen. “And two more out back.”
“Why aren’t they doing anything?” asks Molly. “Attacking?”
“They don’t want in,” says Buffy. “They’re here to make sure we don’t get out.” She calls Rona over, and hands her a sword from the weapons chest.
“Like this’ll do any good,” says Rona. “I mean, what’s the point?”
Kennedy points to the tip of the sword. “It’s this end right here. You stick that in the bad guys. Any more questions?”
Kennedy turns to the weapons chest, and selects a crossbow for herself. “This’ll do me.”
“Are you sure you know how to use it?” asks Buffy.
Kennedy quickly cocks the bow. “Since I was eight.”
“Can I have something?” asks Andrew. “Come on, the Turok-Han’s coming for me, too, you know. I have a right to defend myself.” He sees the way Buffy is looking at him. “If you…say so.”
Buffy doesn’t really like the idea of having an armed Andrew in the house, but he should have something, so she reaches into the chest and pulls out a bottle of holy water. She presses it into his hands.
Andrew looks a little insulted at first, but he quickly changes his mind and clutches the bottle to his chest.
Willow stands in the hallway levitating a small candle burning in a glass holder over her hand. “Facing my fear,” she says quietly. “I’m facing my fear. Hear that, fear? I’m facing you.”
Kennedy sees the candle floating over Willow’s hand. “Wow!” Willow’s concentration is broken, and the candle starts to fall. She catches it. “You really can float stuff.”
Willow blows out the candle. “Just testing.”
“Oh, right,” says Kennedy. “Heard this voodoo once turned you into the big scary. Big scary Willow. That’s something I’d almost like to see—”
“No, you wouldn’t!” snaps Willow.
“Said, ‘almost,’” says Kennedy.
“I needed to make sure,” says Willow. “Last time I tried using magic, the First, it…turned it around on me, got inside. I felt it surging through me in every fiber of my being. Pure, undiluted evil. I could taste it.”
“How does evil taste?” asks Kennedy.
“A little chalky.”
Dawn is still keeping watch through the slit in the boards over the living room windows. “Guys? Something’s happening.”
Rona looks out. She sees the Harbingers moving aside to make room for the Turok-Han. “Oh, my god.”
The Turok-Han moves toward the front door.
“Here it comes,” says Buffy.
The Turok-Han starts to beat on the front door. Willow begins her spell. “Caerimonia Minerva, saepio… saepire… saepsi.
“Deflector shields,” says Andrew. “Deflector shields up!” Kennedy shoots an annoyed look at him.
“Willow?” asks Buffy.
The Turok-Han smashes open the front door. It looks around, and sees all of its victims crowded into the living room.
Willow finishes her spell. “Saepio impedimentum!”
The Turok-Han bounces off the magical barrier that suddenly appears.
“It’s working!” says Chloe.
“For the moment,” says Vi.
The Turok-Han batters against the barrier. It trembles under the impact. Willow is trembling too, like each blow is hitting her.
“Will?” asks Buffy.
Willow’s eyes are turning black. “It’s—it’s strong.”
“It’s hurting her!” says Kennedy.
“Hang on, Will,” says Buffy.
The Turok-Han keeps battering at the barrier. It begins to waver.
“I don’t know…” says Willow.
“She can’t hold it!” says Dawn.
“What do we do?” asks Rona. “What do we do?”
“Run,” says Buffy. “Everybody, run!”
Everyone starts to run toward the back door, with Xander leading the way. Buffy stays behind with Willow, who’s trying to keep the barrier up as long as she can. Once the others have a bit of a head start, they follow after them.
Xander runs out onto the back porch. He swings his axe into the gut of one of the Harbingers waiting there. Kennedy shoots another with her crossbow. Xander attacks the one still standing, while Kennedy takes the other girls out through the back gate.
The Harbinger catches Xander’s axe, and throws him to the ground. It pulls the axe from Xander’s hands, and lifts it up, to chop at him.
The Harbinger collapses to the ground. Buffy stands behind it, with the stake she’d jabbed into its back in her hand.
“Come on!” she tells Xander. He climbs to his feet, and they follow the others out the back gate.
Giles and Anya emerge from the portal into the dark alley. Anya is very unsteady on her feet, and her hair is a wind blown mess. “Are you all right?” asks Giles.
“Yeah,” says Anya. “I just… I don’t understand how Buffy’s death mucked up the whole Slayer mojo. You know, it’s not like she hasn’t died before.”
“It’s not because she died,” says Giles. “The Beljoxa’s Eye was quite clear about that…in its enigmatic way. It’s because she lives. Again. Buffy’s not responsible for that.”
“Oh,” says Anya. “No. Willow and me, and Xander…and Tara. We’re the ones who brought Buffy back. We’re the reason the First is here, the reason those girls were murdered. No, it’s our fault. The world would’ve been better off if Buffy had just stayed dead.” 1 She starts to limp away down the alley.
Buffy, Xander and Willow catch up with the others on the street. Xander looks back over his shoulder. “Okay, no Bringers following. I guess they’ll save us for old Snaggletooth.”
“Where is the Turok-Han?” asks Willow.
“Right behind us,” says Buffy. “Time to split up.”
“Split up?” asks Molly. “We’re splitting up? Is that wise?”
“Willow, take everyone and find a safe location,” says Buffy. Willow nods understanding.
“I know a place,” says Xander.
“What are you going to do?” asks Dawn.
“I’m going to try to slow the Turok down,” says Buffy. “Lead him away from you guys, get him to chase me.”
“Buffy, you can’t take that thing on yourself,” says Dawn.
“I’ll stay,” says Kennedy.
“No.” Buffy takes the bottle of holy water away from Andrew.
“Hey! I need that!” says Andrew.
Buffy ignores him. “Willow, Xander, take everyone to a safe location.” She can hear the Turok-Han’s growls as it comes toward them. “Get ’em out of here. Now!”
Dawn wants to stay behind with Buffy. Xander pulls her away with him. “Have to go, Dawnie.”
Buffy looks down the street. She can see the Turok-Han approaching. She starts to run at it. She leaps into a two footed drop kick to the Turok-Han’s chest. It barely staggers back. Buffy falls to the pavement.
The Turok-Han moves in on Buffy on the ground. She waits for it to get close and then she smashes the bottle of holy water against its face. The Turok-Han howls in pain as the skin of its face starts to bubble. It reaches down, grabs Buffy and throws her against the side of a car, smashing its window.
Buffy gets back to her feet and starts to run away from the Turok-Han. It starts to follow her, but it stops and looks back in the direction the others went.
Buffy looks back over her shoulder. The Turok-Han has vanished.
Xander climbs down a scaffolding into the excavation for a large building. He looks up at Andrew and tells him to hurry up. “If you don’t pick up the pace, I’m going to come up there and drop your ass.”
“God, way to keep up morale in a crisis,” says Andrew. “No wonder Buffy’s the leader.”
Rona and Chloe are following after Andrew. “Some leader,” mutters Chloe.
“This is crazy,” says Rona.
“Got that right,” says Chloe.
Chloe and Rona jump down the last few feet, and turn to Xander. “What are we doing down here?” asks Rona.
“Quieter, faster!” says Xander to the others who are still climbing down.
Xander leads everyone into the excavation. The initial work for the basement of the building is completed, with a concrete floor, and walls all around them.
“Where are we?” asks Molly.
“Future site of the new Public Library,” says Xander. “Opening up May, 2003. If I ever get back to work, that is.”
Chloe looks around. “You call this a safe location?”
“It’s the middle of nothing,” says Vi.
Willow looks around too. “This’ll do. Okay, everyone, spread out, take positions.”
Everyone starts to spread out. Andrew doesn’t move. “Um, what’s my position?”
“And don’t make a sound!” says Willow.
“That’s the plan?” asks Rona. “Spread out? That thing is going to kill Buffy, and then it’s going to come after us. For all we know, it’s killing her right now!”
Kennedy is looking behind Rona. “Or it could just skip that part and come straight here.”
Rona turns to see what Kennedy is looking at. She sees the Turok-Han. It looks around at all the trapped girls, and growls.
The Turok-Han moves toward the girls it has cornered in the excavation. It knocks a wheelbarrow full of tools flying as it approaches them.
“Oh, god,” says Chloe. “Oh, no. No, no, no.”
A set of floodlights come on, shining bright light into the excavation. The Turok-Han stops, confused by the light. More lights come on.
Dawn looks up, and sees her sister. “Buffy?”
Buffy is standing at an opening at the edge of the excavation looking down at them all.
“What’s she doing?” asks Molly.
Kennedy raises her crossbow and takes aim at the Turok-Han. Willow puts her hand on top of the bow. “Just watch. It’s showtime.” She leads them all to the scaffolding along one edge of the excavation, and they start to climb it.
Buffy is still looking down at the Turok-Han. “Looks good, doesn’t it? They’re trapped in here, terrified, meat for the beast, and there’s nothing they can do but wait.” Buffy flips down into the excavation. “That’s all they’ve been doing for days, waiting to be picked off, having nightmares about monsters that can’t be killed. But I don’t believe in that. I always find a way. I’m the thing that monsters have nightmares about, and right now, you and me are going to show ’em why.”
Buffy slowly moves toward the Turok-Han. “It’s time. Welcome to Thunderdome.”
Andrew looks down at Buffy and the Turk-Han. “Two men enter. One man leaves.”
The Turok-Han charges at Buffy. She evades it, and attacks. The Turok-Han evades, and blocks her attacks. They both maneuver for position, making lightning fast attacks, not letting the other close on them. The Turok-Han is the first to have one of its attacks strike home, and Buffy staggers back.
Everyone else looks down at the fight taking place beneath them. Dawn looks at Willow. “This… You planned this: letting the barrier fail, bringing us here. You and Buffy.”
Willow doesn’t say anything. She keeps watching the fight.
Flashback:
Everyone is gathered around the dining room table. “Honestly, you staked that thing, and it didn’t die,” says Molly.
“No, but that doesn’t—”
Dawn is interrupted by Vi. “Maybe it can’t be killed.”
“That mean we shouldn’t try?” asks Dawn.
“There’s that word again,” says Rona.
Buffy has been standing silently listening to the girls talk. She looks down the table toward Willow. “Willow, can you hear me?”
Willow looks up suddenly when she hears Buffy’s voice in her head. “Yeah.”
Buffy picks up an empty bowl off the table and starts toward the kitchen. “We’re losing them. Can’t let that happen. I got an idea. Grab Xander.”
“Hey, it’s a good word,” says Kennedy.
Willow gets up, and turns toward Xander. “Xander.”
Xander is startled by Willow’s voice suddenly popping into his head. “What?” he asks.
“I said trying is good,” says Kennedy.
Xander realizes what’s going on, and covers his mistake. “I just thought it bared repeating.” He follows Willow and Buffy into the kitchen.
Buffy, Xander and Willow stand silently in the kitchen looking at each other while the girls argue in the dining room.
“I’ve got to slay the neander-vamp to get Spike out of that cave, but I need those girls to see me do it.” says Buffy.
“I get it.” says Willow. “But this isn’t the best venue for a smackdown.”
“I know just the place.” says Xander.
The Turok-Han grabs Buffy and throws her against the scaffold that their audience is on. The scaffold rocks, and Kennedy drops the crossbow. It lands in front of Buffy. She grabs it, and fires the bolt into the Turok-Han’s chest.
The Turok-Han barely reacts. It ignores the arrow sticking out of its chest, and charges at Buffy. She grabs a six foot piece of pipe, and uses it as a quarter staff to knock the Turok-Han back.
Buffy uses the pipe to vault over the Turok-Han. She drops it and snatches up a pick off the ground. She swings at the Turok-Han. It ducks her first swing, and catches the pick on her second. It throws Buffy against the side of a construction trailer.
The Turok-Han grabs Buffy and throws her into a pile of concrete blocks, smashing several of them. Chloe winces in sympathetic pain.
Buffy picks up one of the blocks, and swings it at the Turok-Han. It smashes the block with its fist, and kicks Buffy toward another set of scaffolding on the opposite side of the site from their audience. Buffy is a little slow getting to her feet this time, and the Turok-Han kicks her in the ribs, knocking her under the scaffolding.
The Turok-Han comes in after Buffy, grabs her, and throws her up through the wooden platform on the scaffolding. It climbs up after her, while Buffy lies on the platform. It grabs her by the throat, and lifts her up.
“It’s killing her!” says Rona.
“We have to do something!” says Molly.
“Wait!” says Willow.
Buffy looks down, and sees the shaft of the arrow still sticking out of the Turok-Han’s chest. She grabs it, and twists. The Turok-Han cries in pain.
Buffy snaps off the arrow shaft, and plunges the broken end into the Turok-Han’s eye. It drops her, and clutches at the arrow shaft sticking out of its eye. It pulls it free.
Buffy attacks. She knocks the Turok-Han back with a quick combination of punches and kicks. She kicks the Turok-Han off the platform, into a pile of construction materials. She jumps down after it.
The Turok-Han kicks out at Buffy, but this time it’s her who seems to barely feel the blow. She continues her attack, punching repeatedly at the Turok-Han’s head. It hits back, but its attacks have lost their power.
Buffy lands a punch that spins the Turok-Han around. She grabs a loop of barbed wire, and wraps it around its neck. She holds the ends, and pulls with all her strength.
The wire slices into the Turok-Han’s neck as Buffy pulls. Suddenly all resistance to the wire vanishes. The Turok-Han’s head explodes into dust, followed immediately by the rest of its body.
Buffy looks up toward her audience. “See? Dust.” She brushes the vampire’s dust from her hands. “Just like the rest of ’em.”
Buffy slowly walks out into the center of the excavation. “I don’t know what’s coming next, but I do know it’s going to be just like this: hard… painful. But in the end, it’s going to be us. If we all do our part, believe it, we’ll be the ones left standing. Here endeth the lesson.” She walks away toward the exit from the excavation.
The girls all start to climb down off the scaffolding, and follow Buffy out.
The First watches them all leave. She’s furious.
Spike looks up, and sees Buffy standing in front of him holding one of the Harbinger’s curved knives. She has a freshly bandaged cut on her cheek. He laughs weakly. “A knife, now, is it? What’ll— what’ll that—”
Buffy doesn’t say anything. She just steps toward him.
“You—you can’t hurt me,” says Spike. “You’re— you’re just a bloody figment, you are. You’re just…”
Spike stops as Buffy lifts the knife up, and starts to cut the straps holding his right hand. His hand comes free, and it falls down onto her shoulder. Spike realises that she’s solid. “You… You… Oh…” he whispers.
Buffy cuts Spike’s other hand free, and catches him as he nearly falls to the ground. She supports him with his arm over her shoulder, and her arm around his waist as she helps him toward the exit from the cavern.
| Who or What | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| Three Harbingers | Sunnydale Bus Depot | Knifed by Buffy |
| Eve | Sunspot Motel | Killed by Harbingers |
| Harbinger | Buffy’s back yard | Shot with crossbow by Kennedy |
| Harbinger | Buffy’s back yard | Axed by Xander |
| Harbinger | Buffy’s back yard | Staked by Buffy |
| The Turok-Han | Public Library construction site | Garotted by Buffy |